Road Trip
by Shadsie
Summary: The tires on the bus screamed as it launched off the rise and landed hard upon the broken asphalt. Its occupants had their weapons drawn. Bombs and blasts were hurled out the back as the angels on the roof let off a steady fire. Mario kept his foot on the fuel as the hordes of infected swarmed all around them. The dog bayed for the fallen. A Smash Zombie Apocalypse fic.
1. Our Friend, Otto

_**Disclaimer and Notes:**__ Nintendo's characters belong to Nintendo. They should be content, as I frequently tell them "Shut up and take my money!" during those rare times when there is spare money in my life. _

_This is one of those weirder ideas I'm starting, have some plans for, but am not sure where it will ultimately lead. I figure that we're coming up on Halloween, so what the heck. Writing characters I "know," with a few exceptions. (Please let me know if I am getting the Mother/Earthbound characters correct-on-research alone here. Same with Samus – I've written her before, but I've only played her a tiny bit). If any of your favorites aren't in the main group and are not otherwise mentioned, figure that they found their own bus / their own way out. _

_The premise of this is very loosely based upon the online freebie parody game "Organ Trail." It's a fun way to waste time if you're old enough to remember virtual trips to Oregon by wagon during school computer-time or are just a really dedicated retro-gamer, but wish westward travel had included more zombies. Stupid stuff like this is loads of fun to write._

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><p><strong>ROAD TRIP<strong>

**A Super Smash Brothers Fan Fiction by Shadsie**

The tires on the beat-up old yellow bus with scuffed paint screamed as the rubber hit the road hard. Dust flew everywhere as it cleared the ramp and slammed with a disturbing thump on the broken asphalt. People whose arms were hanging out of the popped-free windows steadied themselves to keep from falling out. Those that were by the flung-open double doors braced and steadied themselves, hanging onto the back seats. They leveled their weapons once again and fired into their pursuers. Small black-powder bombs flew out from the bus' rear. The pair of angels on the roof of the bus crouched to stay steady and lit their wings with holy fire to keep themselves in place. They went back to firing strange weapons that at once resembled bows but worked with the steady rhythm of machine-gun fire in their skilled hands. They'd never be short of ammunition, either. The dog on board scrambled to the front and barked warnings, howling his displeasure at the rough landing.

The enemy horde was surprisingly fast. A few of the beings on the bus had prior experience with creatures similar to their kind. Both of the long-eared swordsmen complained that undead beings in the variant timelines of their world had moved much slower than the throng. The disease that decayed the former people and beasts that were after them did little to slow them.

The woman in the technical armor charged up the canon in her arm and let fly with a beam that tore through at least a block's worth of former Smash City residents. A pair of children stood ready with baseball bats at the sides of the open doors at the rear of the bus, ready to beat back any "runners" that tried to climb inside. A few of the infected, brains rotted as they were, remembered driving-skills and ran up the sides of the speeding bus in smaller vehicles.

The black-winged angel on the fore of the bus- roof dispatched the driver of a jeep without remorse or pity. The white-winged angel took out the tires of the small Toyota that was coming up their tail. The car spun and the thing that was once a woman inside it came through the windshield, painting the glass in black blood.

That was one of the most telling signs of infection… the black blood.

The younger and elder swordsmen lobbed small bombs out of the back. A turtle-like creature spewed a cannonade of water in response to the shouted orders of a tense young man. The dog scrambled to the back and started throwing what appeared to be clay pigeons and blasting caps before retreating behind one of the seats. One woman in a long, regal dress sent a ball of explosive, magical fire out of the back of the bus. Another woman in dress threw a turnip and told the man in overalls at the wheel of the bus to punch it.

The bus trundled on until it came to a roadblock: More of the former residents of the area. More of their former fans. No one wanted to think too hard about how they'd all cheered for them in the stands of the various arenas, eager to watch them to fight in a pageant of courage and honor. No one on the bus wanted to think of the gifts and praise they'd not at all long ago received from these people for being celebrity athletes.

Now all these fans wanted was their flesh – not in the lurid way that some of the Smash Tournament staff used to catch spies on the grounds of the mansion they all resided at with camera-phones camped around the hot springs, but in the more literal sense. The mysterious infection they suffered had rendered them hungry beasts, only interested in either eating any live-meat they could wrap their teeth around or spreading the disease.

The saddest thing, a few of the survivors thought, was how some of their own had never even gotten the praise they were due when the world was normal. Some of the fighters on the bus were newcomers whom everyone had just met, who had yet to show their skills in the latest tournament to which they'd been called.

"Lady Palutena, can you hear me?" the white-winged angel shouted to the sky.

"Of course she can't!" his dark-feathered counterpart groused. "Our world is cut off from this one, remember?"

The first angel continued his desperate, screaming prayer, ignoring his brother. "I'll do anything! I'll scrub all the floors of the temple! I'll stop giving wedgies to the younger centurions! I'll eat my vegetables! Just get us out of this!"

"Mama mia!" shouted the man in the driver's seat. The sounds of a stalled engine echoed in everyone's ears. Those with projectile weapons used them.

A large, yellow, sphereroid being jumped out of the bus.

"No! Pac-Man! Don't!" the little blond boy with the bat at the back of the bus shouted. It was too late. The creature opened his impressive maw and started chomping back at those people that everyone had been reluctant to call "zombies," though no other term fit.

The engine came back to life again. The zombies from the front started milling to the back. All the attention of the horde was upon the creature that had the gall to bite them back. Pac-Man's impressive mouth chomped through limbs and crushed bones. Link put a hand over his younger counterpart's eyes as the creature crushed a head. It was a terrible sight to behold.

"Go! Go! Go!" Peach shouted to Mario as soon as the road ahead became clear.

"But he's still back there!"

"She's right," Link sighed. Everyone on the bus watched forlornly as the infected began to overtake their newcomer friend. Pac-Man was an ancient being, but one that the others had yet to enjoy the company of for long.

"We can't save him!" Link said, gasping. "We have to punch it or his sacrifice will be for nothing!"

"But Link…"

"But nothing, Toon!" Link said to his different-dimensional "little brother." "We will die! All of us!" He then sighed, his sword-hand shaking with the hilt. "He… he knew what he was doing."

The bus was already moving again. The people inside could hear the angels on the roof fighting. "No, Pit!" The roof-steel dented in slightly. The sounds of one person restraining another echoed. "I just lost a friend; I'm not going to lose a brother, too!"

The dog let loose a long, loud, mournful bay as the bus fled from the scene. The last everyone saw out of the back of those double-doors was the yellow sphere still fighting, still drawing the enemies away from them, taking down as many as he could with fists and face. The boys standing beside them drew the double-doors closed.

Link put a hand on Toon Link's shoulder as they stared. "I can't believe it…" the elder swordsman began…. "He just jumped in there…distracted them… and saved us all. That's what heroes are supposed to do. I wish I had thought of that… that it had been me."

Princess Zelda's dirty glove clamped itself upon his shoulder. "Don't wish that," she ordered - her voice heavy with quiet wisdom. "He was brave, but he may have just caused us more problems."

The two Links looked up at her oddly. So did Ness and Lucas. The Pokemon Trainer looked her way, too, after retiring his Squirtle for a rest in a pokeball.

"I know that it is not a pleasant thing to hope for someone's death," Zelda began, "but the alternative is worse. If he is merely bitten and contracts the infection, he may come after us. And with that maw of his…"

"Let's not think about it," Princess Peach said.

"The sun is rising," said the quiet, wolflike blue creature who sat cross-legged in a meditation-pose in one of the center bus seats. Lucario's eyes were closed. "I do not sense the aura of the unfortunate ones following us. They will not travel during the day. The light is on our side."

Long limbs followed by robes and feathers snaked through the popped-open windows.

"Are you okay, Pit?" Toon Link asked, noting the scrapes on the white-robed angel's skin and his bloody nose.

"Yeah, Yeah," Pit dismissed. "I'll be okay."

Dark Pit, for his part, didn't say a word. He hunkered down in a seat at the front of the bus, pouring over something he wasn't letting anyone else see.

"We'll a' rest once I get some distance between us and the city," Mario said.

"Let's hope we don't run out of fuel," Samus Aran said, sitting heavily in another one of the front seats, still in her power armor.

Ness and Lucas sat down together, sniffling and commiserating. Red shuffled pokeballs in one hand. Toon Link doused a rag with one of the canteens and helped Pit to clean up. The dog wandered over to Ness and Lucas to give the boys something to pet. Peach at in the seat nearest to Mario and stared out of the front window. Link and Zelda sat down together. Link kept looking out of the back windows.

"I'd never be so rough on my little sister," Toon Link quipped as dabbed Pit's nose.

Pit smiled. "Dark did the right thing," he said. "He saved my life. I'm sure you'd clock your kid sister one if you had to keep her from fighting a hopeless battle against a city full of zombies."

For some reason, perhaps because of the stress, this made everyone on the bus burst out in laughter.

"Well, we're on our way, I guess," Link said. "We're on our way home – to my home and Zelda's. Let's hope Otto can take us that far."

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><p>They'd named the bus "Otto." It had just seemed to them like an appropriate name. The bus looked and felt like an "Otto." The band of survivors had been lucky to find it in one of the stadium-parking areas outside of one of the arenas they all fought in as the "Super Smash Brothers." Of course, there were some "Super Bash Sisters," as well, but the name for the first tournament had stuck for them all.<p>

Everyone guessed that the bus had probably once been a school bus, but it had clearly been modified. It didn't have as many seats as a typical school bus, having had some taken out of the back for greater space. It seemed capable of running faster and starting up more quickly than a typical pokey school bus, too. The survivor's group had further modified the bus to their needs – popping out windows so they could hang weapons out of the sides and fire them off.

And so a group of mis-matched warriors were off and running across a land not their own.

Not a single "Smasher" was in his or her own country here. They had come from many lands, worlds and variant timelines of worlds to participate in a grand gladiatorial-style contest. It was a non-lethal form of combat, despite the formidable weapons and powers the chosen warriors wielded. The mysterious patrons that ran the tournament had a "trophy system" – that is, a failsafe that ensured that anyone sustaining serious or fatal wounds would be transformed, temporarily, into a statue on a stand. The trophies could be brought back to life, fit and whole. It was an annoying state to be in, but preferable to actually dying.

That safety was of course, gone now – dust in the wind just like the planned fourth tournament.

The lands that everyone belonged to had some connections to the central territory of "Smash," also known by some as the "Nation of Ninten." Link didn't much like that name, for he thought the name sounded superficially like "Panem," but that might only be because he'd broken the Fourth Wall to read certain books and some of the other fan fiction the author of this story has written.

The infection had started mundanely enough. It looked like a cold at first. People who got it were of the ordinary sort – people from the central Smash City as well as people who had come from other worlds as fans of the celebrity tournament fighters. The initial symptoms were merely "the sniffles," but instead of recovering, sufferers became increasingly sluggish – and sluggish of mind. Eventually, there was a "necrolyzing effect," - at least that's what Dr. Mario had called it. The afflicted began to become malodorous. They bled black. All but the most basic, animalistic functions of their brains died. The skin paled and they looked, for all purposes, like corpses that moved, whose life had not completely left them.

What is more is that they'd developed a taste for living flesh. It was not only human flesh, as in zombie movies (this would have made no sense because not all of the sapient residents of and visitors to Smash City were strictly human), but any kind of meat that coursed with warm blood that was part of a living body. Unlike the zombies in movies, as well, the hungry were capable of digesting their meals. The wastes left behind wherever they wandered were utterly horrific. Perhaps, this is why the infected were able to move with speed instead of being hampered by the "classic" sluggishness. These zombies were not risen dead, but were transformed people. They were still considered undead, however. Whatever had been left of an infected person's "soul" or "spark" was gone by the time the disease hit its terminal stage.

The darndest thing was that the rotted brains apparently did not register pain. The afflicted could walk through fire and over broken glass and suffer all manner of broken bones and gunshots – even hits that should have been fatal – without stopping. The classic "destruction of the brain," seemed to be the way to give them their final rest. "Two shots to the heart" in classic gunslinger fashion also seemed to be effective.

Master Hand had begun closing off the other worlds when the illness had spread to the Mushroom Kingdom. This was for those worlds' protection. He and Crazy Hand, the rulers of this world, were determined to find a cure, or to, at least find a way to evacuate their fighters in a safe manner. Unfortunately, this emergency plan wasn't the best thought-out as it kept people who might have been able to help from being able to do anything. For instance, before anyone knew that the "virus" going around Smash City was anything more than the common cold, the Goddess Palutena had been called home to Skyworld on divine business. She insisted that her angels, Pit and Dark Pit, stay behind to participate in the tournament and to wait for her return. She was still there when the Hands slammed the door on Skyworld, and as much of a goddess as she was, her power held no sway over the power of the native divinities. Any Light she could have brought to the situation had been lost, the passage between their worlds severed.

Pit wasn't even able to speak with her anymore via his laurel-crown. He put up a front of strength, but the silence in his mind greatly distressed him since he was so accustomed to chatter and to the general feeling of a divine presence in his life.

The Smash Mansion had put up a good front. It had all of the amenities of a fortress, but it had fallen. Last night had been the final push. The starving hordes and broken through the force fields and the fencing. No one knew what had become of the Hands. Everyone was separated from one another. The group that had found "Otto" hoped that the other Smashers had found similar vehicles. They even whispered of the possibility that the others might have gotten to the Halberd – which was why they couldn't find it. No one blamed anyone for not "waiting for them." When the hordes had pushed through the mansion doors, everything was chaos. Everyone was afraid.

Upon finding Otto the plan quickly became to high-tail it to Hyrule. According to the last snatches of information that had been gathered, Hyrule – specifically Old Hyrule, where the adult version of Link had come from, was the last unaffected land that had not been completely severed by the Hand's overzealous guardianship.

Although the Triforce of the current Link and Zelda's era had been housed within them and Ganondorf, the "true Triforce" was suspected to reside somewhere in that land, or in the Golden Land that was spiritually connected to it. If they – or, hopefully, other survivors, could make it to Hyrule and if any of them were balanced in heart enough, there was a possibility of not only stopping the hordes of death, but of reversing the entire problem altogether. It was certainly within the wishes of all of the hearts of the people aboard Otto, at least, to make the world right again – to make the disease never happen.

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><p>"We're going to make it right again!" Link said, attempting to give a pep talk as the group stopped in open country for a rest. The zombies did not move during the daytime for some mysterious reason. Pit speculated that their skin might be sensitive to light, something that he would know about as a being with strong connections to the element.<p>

"I suppose the other option, if your Triforce doesn't pan out, is the Wish Seed," Dark Pit muttered as he leaned against a tree, stretching out in its shade. Pit perched in the same tree, resting in one of its branches.

"The Wish Seed?" Link asked.

"Oh, yeah," Dark Pit went on. "It's a magical item from our world that can grant the wish of anyone who touches it…"

"Dark…" Pit warned.

"Too bad it's bupkiss," Dark Pit said. "It was a ruse by Hades, the god of the dead to get people to go to war with each other."

"Then why would you tell me about it?" Link asked.

"I don't put much faith in your 'Triforce," he said bluntly. "It seems like the very same thing."

"The Triforce is real!" Toon Link shouted. "My ancestor saw it first-hand!"

"Your ancestor?" Dark Pit said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, well…" Toon Link began, "It was used for a wish for the future – for MY time. New Hyrule works more with the Force Gems… and technology, trains…. But the Triforce does exist!"

"That it does," the elder Link assured. "I carried some of its essence in my body. It kept me safe as I walked the Twilight. It kept me from giving into the _dark_."

He emphasized the last word, just to annoy the black-winged angel.

Dark Pit replied with a "Hmph," and curled up on his side to take a nap. His light-aligned twin settled onto his branch, letting his wings hang loose over it as he enjoyed the rare pleasure of laying on his back. "We're gonna save everyone…" Pit mumbled as he smiled and closed his eyes, starting to fall into an exhausted sleep.

Peach sat down with Mario, rubbing his back. "Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find Luigi. He's probably just with the others." Mario stared off across the countryside, too worried to properly rest.

The two children of psi played with the dog. Lucario sat nearby, watching them. Samus was checking the bus over. Red had gotten up to take a walk, within sight of everyone.

Link whistled and the hunting dog that had stowed along with them immediately came to his side. "Sorry, boys," he apologized to Ness and Lucas. "I'm going to need to borrow Duckie for a little bit."

"Aw," they both said.

"I like a' dogs as much as the next guy," Mario spoke up, "but do we have the resources to take care of him?"

"No one disses Duckie!" Lucas shouted. The animal had not been a part of the mansion for very long, but the boy had grown much-attached to him, as if in remembrance of a past beloved pet that could not be there.

"He's going to earn his keep," Link said. "Remember, he's a retriever. Do you see that line of water up ahead? Between those trees?" He pointed. "That's a river or at least a nice-sized pond. I've been watching waterfowl dip and dive over there since we pulled off here. I managed to keep my bow in the chaos. I'm going hunting."

Zelda spun around and used her magic to transform into Sheik, losing her bulky dress for more moveable attire. "I am coming with you, Hero. We _think_ the zombies don't move during the day, but we can never be too careful. Someone needs to watch your back."

"Maybe I should go with him," Samus suggested. "If anyone needs protection, I'm the best equipped here."

"No," Link said. "I need you to watch the camp. People need their sleep and if you're not tired…"

"I'm not."

"You'll make the best guardian."

"A boring job. Maybe I'll use the time to compose a poem for a fallen hero. I can't believe Yellow did that…"

"Yeah," Sheik replied. "But rest must come before memorials. Mario _will_ rest if you have to make him. He's our driver. We need him perky by nightfall."

Link and Sheik headed toward the bushes, trees and water. The brown dog came capering along with them, eager for the hunt.

"Didn't he used to have a little duck-friend that sat on his back?" Sheik asked.

"A little mallard? Yeah, he got lost last night. I tell you… this hunt would be really awkward with the little guy hanging around. It's already awkward enough for me… since I used to talk with all kinds of animals when I was a wolf, ducks included. I don't know what happened to him, but it was just the dog that followed us to the bus." Link got a strange look on his face – half-disturbed, half-amused. "I think I saw a few feathers on his jowel…"

They both could have sworn they heard the canine snicker.

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><p><strong>Continue? <strong>

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><p><em><strong>I looked up some gameplay of Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS of "Duckhunt." I've chosen not to include all of the moves for the sake of wanting a somewhat realistic dog for this fic. The clay-pigeon throwing and the blasting caps were too good to pass up, though. Little duck-friends, however, are too tasty to last long on a bus full of hungry Smashers. <strong>_

_**I was excited when I learned of the leak for that dog, though. It's been far too long since I've tried to shoot him down over his snarky laugh. There was a (regrettable) time in my life when I just wasn't into gaming. I ended up giving away my NES and various now-collector's-items childhood games – including Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt... also a gold-cartridge original Legend of Zelda. Once I got back into gaming, I started mentally kicking myself very hard. **_


	2. The Fellowship of the Bus

**ROAD TRIP**

Link returned to camp with three fat ducks and a large goose tied to his belt. Duckie the dog held a limp mallard in his mouth very gently. Sheik noted how similar it looked to the dog's former companion, save that it had a bright green head rather than iridescent lavender. The hunting party had been gone for just under three hours. Thankfully, it was summer, edging into early autumn, so the days were still quite long. The group had time.

The various Riders of Otto were camped out with one another, doing various things. Link had come to notice the interesting relationships that had sprung up among them all. They were all together here, as survivors, but they gravitated to their own little especially-close mini-groups, as well.

Mario was asleep with his head on Peach's lap as she dozed against one of the front wheels of the bus. Mario and Peach – they were a longtime couple. Link actually found it hard to tell exactly what their relationship was. They weren't married to his knowledge, but sometimes acted like it. Sometimes, Mario was treated as a servant, since Peach was the princess of their kingdom. Sometimes, they acted with more of a "friend" vibe, and as sporting companions. There was a rumor going around that they were essentially actors in their world, playing lead roles in elaborate adventure-films, or games for Those That Lived Beyond The Fourth Wall. Whatever they were, they were close. The two of them worried about the medic version of Mario from a splinter-universe as well as Mario's dear brother, Luigi. They'd both been lost in the chaos, whereabouts unknown. Rosalina, a newcomer-fighter from their world, was thought to be safe. She'd had the same kind of thing happen to her as Palutena of Angel Land had – called to cosmic business well before any of the zombie-devastation happened to places out of the infection's reach.

Palutena's angels, Pit and Dark Pit. Theirs was a relationship that made Link jealous. His own "dark side" didn't have nearly the personality that Pit's did, but was just a passing shadow. The swordsman had learned the story of the two and thought that Pit must have an exceptional heart for a magically-created "dark half" drawn out of him to be…actually a rather just and righteous person, if a bit gloomy and hot-headed. Dark Pit reminded Link of Midna in some ways. She was the partner he had worked with when Hyrule had been covered in darkness to set the world right again. At first, he thought she was very wicked until she'd showed a genuine caring for her people and his beneath her many layers of sarcasm. Link, himself, was misunderstood by people for a while, when he piloted the body of a dark creature. This was why Link knew that "dark" was not the equivalent of "evil."

Lucario, upon reading their auras, had said that Pit and Dark Pit were "two halves of a single soul" but also, that they were differentiated enough by now, by their varying experiences, to be their own people, their own souls. They were, for all purposes, a set of not-quite identical twins. Link figured that Pit's being an angel meant that he probably hadn't been given a natural birth, anyway, so his twin might as well have been born unusually, too. They did fight a bit – with arguments turning into punching each other's arms, tugging each other's wings, swiping each other's stuff and the occasional dust-up ball of feathers and violence, but it was no more or less than what was expected of brothers. If anyone _outside _the twindom were to threaten one of them, even as an ill-conceived joke, the other was sure to give them a glare that told them that they'd better have an up-to-date life insurance policy.

Their closeness was understandable. However, the strangest thing, Link thought, was how someone not even from their world had joined the relationship to make it a trio. Samus Aran and Pit had been close since the last tournament. Perhaps they were drawn to one another out of a mutual loneliness then, or maybe it was just something in the conversations they shared over food in the mess hall about the enemies they'd faced and the nature of their worlds, but before anyone knew it, they had adopted each other. Samus acted like a "big sister" to Pit's "little brother."

Pit was technically eons old. Not even he had kept track of how long he'd lived as an ageless creature. "I'm not good with that much math," he'd said. Chronologically, he was much older than Samus was, yet, the archetypes fit. Pit's personality fit the way his body looked – meaning that immortality aside, he was a goofy thirteen-year old kid. When he and Samus had come back for the new tournament (everyone had just been settling in and doing practice runs when zombies happened), they immediately gravitated toward one another. Dark Pit was in tow and it didn't take long for Samus to have another angelic "little brother" to contend with.

Ness and Lucas had something of a brotherly relationship, as well. This seemed to be based upon them being from the same world – although Link was pretty sure they were from different eras in it. It was also based in the fact that they had specific, ill-understood powers. They seemed to be the same age, but Ness took on the "big brother" role, as Lucas seemed to be a bit on the timid-side. Link honestly did not know much about their world and had never gotten to know either of them well, as the kids tended to hang out more with the kids rather than the adult Smashers. He'd heard that Lucas had gone through some terribly tragic things. Everyone was gentle with him. Lucario seemed to be especially protective of the both of them of late. Even though he was a "fighting-type" of Pokemon, he had abilities that most put in the realm of psychic phenomena, which gave him a certain kinship with the pair. He seemed to be attracted to their auras in a way that made him want to keep them safe.

He was closer to the kids than he was to Red, the Pokemon Trainer, oddly enough. Lucario respected him highly, but Red considered Lucario to be a "free" Pokemon and chose to concentrate upon grooming his three partners. Toon Link had been chatting with him a lot and watching him train his Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard. As Link prepared to do the dirty-work on the lunch he'd shot for them all, he overheard Red speaking of the scientists and explorers of his world discovering new kinds of Pokemon.

"I think you'd do really great with a Honedge," he told the younger Link.

"What kind of Pokemon is that?" the boy asked.

"Oh, it's really neat! Kind of dangerous, though. I've been looking into taking a trip out to the Kalos region to find one. They're a steel and ghost type, a spirit-possessed sword! I heard that if you aren't careful in handling them, they can suck out your soul, though."

"Ooh…. But I don't know, Red. I don't think it can ever replace the Master Sword. It's got a spirit, too."

"Does it move on its own?"

Link laughed. He loved learning about other fighter's worlds. Pokemon could be so strange. Red had once tried to peg down the kinds of trainers he thought everyone in the Smash Mansion would be if they ever took an extended visit to his universe. Link had been slated as someone who'd be good with steel types and possibly with dragons. Zelda had been slated as an Eevee-trainer. Eevees weren't a type but were a unique family of variant evolutions. Mario would be an excellent fire-type trainer, of course. Red thought Samus would be good with electric-types, especially after seeing her closeness with Pikachu – one of the missing. Pit was happy to learn that he'd make a good flying-type trainer, if for nothing more than to get a chance to ride on the back of something big. Dark Pit would of course, be a good handler for dark-type Pokemon, which had a rebellious spirit that he would understand, and on it went.

It looked like he was still trying to figure out a type for Toon.

Toon Link, was, of course, Link's own split-universe "little brother." They both, apparently, carried the respective essence of the erstwhile Hero of Time.

Comparisons to the Hero of Time...that was one thing that had annoyed Link upon coming to the tournaments with the Zelda of his timeline. The first two tournaments of Smash had taken his ancestor out of time and one of them had taken Zelda's ancestor. A lot of information had been lost between that era and his own and Link had never found a reliable historical record stating whom the Hero of Time had married, but apparently, he and the princess-then-empress of Hyrule had been very close. Veterans of the previous tournaments had seen them as a couple and expected the same of him and the present Zelda.

Link was but her humble servant – her resident Hero. Upon the first stay in Smash City, his wounded heart had belonged to Midna and had yet to heal. As soon as he'd learned that the fighters for the contest were chosen from outside of space and time, he'd hoped that he would find Midna again, the barriers between the Light-world of Hyrule and the Twilight no longer a barrier for them. There was no such luck. He'd heard that she was slated to arrive as an assistant, but the "assist trophies" were not the true people they represented.

He and Zelda had been becoming closer of late. They understood one another well and had a strong friendship. They were starting to gravitate toward each other. Zelda certainly seemed interested in her world's Hero, but Link still needed time.

The dog seemed to belong to everyone. He wandered about at will and allowed everyone to pet him. He seemed to gravitate the most, however, to Ness and Lucas – being boys without dogs who needed a dog without a boy, and to Link. Link had found that his time spent as an animal had given him a special sense for animals – particularly dogs. Lucario was not shy in telling him that he had a "beast-aura," and, of course, he knew the body language of canines intimately.

Sheik withdrew the duck from Duckie's mouth. Link laid out the remaining birds. Link was about to deal with them, but Sheik pushed him away and brought out one of her small knives and said she didn't mind.

"I know how to field-dress food," Link said. "I didn't eat everything raw in wolf-form when I was out on my quest."

"You've also never studied under the chefs in the castle kitchens," she replied. "You would not know it from my station, but cooking is one of my hobbies."

Link raised an eyebrow. "Intriguing," he assessed.

"Unfortunately," Sheik complained, "We do not have all the tools of a well-stocked kitchen, let alone a palace kitchen. If I had a duck-press and a proper saucepan, the gravy I could make for these guys would blow your mind."

Link wandered over to Pit and Dark Pit. They were both well-rested, wide-awake and sitting on the ground looking through a small black pouch. Link's eyes widened and his ears twitched. "Is that…. Is that what I think it is?"

"Uh huh," Dark Pit said, noncommittally.

"That's a bag of holding! No wonder you two have manure-eating grins!"

Pit laughed. "We… just kind of grabbed whatever we could and stuffed into it as we fled. To tell you the truth, we don't even know everything we've got in there."

Bags of that nature were something that the Smash Mansion had as a way of dealing with the bulk of weapons that were used on the stages. They never appeared on the stage, but were where the party balls, random foodstuffs and various weapons not specific to individual fighters were stored. Many Smashers carried one along in secret or as a part of their clothing. Link had a few in the form of the pouches on his belt, but he kept only his own weapons in them – such as an unlimited stock of arrows.

"Score!" Pit said excitedly as he pulled out several pistol-like blasters – a standard in the arena.

"We've got some beam swords, too," Dark Pit said, pulling one out and putting it away.

"Didn't we get some of our weapons, Pittoo?" Pit asked, "I remember raiding our room… or was that a dream? Everything that happened…seems…so weird…"

"Pittoo?" Link asked.

Dark Pit gave him a strong glare. "Only he gets to call me that," he said. "I hate that stupid nickname, but Pit has earned the privilege."

"Okay, then," the swordsman replied, putting up his hands in surrender.

"Burn a pair of limbs to the bone to save my life and we'll talk."

Dark Pit pulled a pair of strange gauntlets out of the depths of the bag. They had golden claws upon them and were lit with magic fire. "Try these on," he said with a smile. "They're from our world. They should fit you. They're a set of Wolf Claws."

Link tentatively took the gift, allowing Dark to slip them onto his hands, over the leather, partially-fingered gloves he already wore. "Don't these types of weapons – your weapons – only work for angels and divinities?"

"Most of them are like that," Pit said. "The energy-bows, the staffs and the gun-blades, but some of the clubs and claws can be used by mortals without modification."

Link tried them out, slashing ribbons of fire through the air. People in the party who were awake immediately turned their heads to watch him. Sheik clapped from her butcher's-rock with game-bloodied hands. The Hylian Hero laughed. "Wow! I feel so powerful! They aren't exactly like my former form, but these are neat!"

"You should stick to your arrows or to the blasters," Lucario intoned from where he sat with his back to the small party. "Close combat is not preferable with the fallen ones in most situations. It may be necessary at some point, but I prefer that we keep our distance as much as it is possible."

Link smiled as he slipped the claws into one of his belt pouches, anyway. "Thank you" he said with a little bow to the Pits. "Did you find any food in there? I mean… I have hunted, but hunting is hard work."

"Not much, I'm afraid," Dark Pit said. "We found a plate of curry, but Pit gulped that down for breakfast before I even got a bite!"

Pit gripped his stomach, looking a little pained, and pointed to a section of the field that was black and smoldering. "You wouldn't have liked it. It was combat-food."

"Serves you right."

Pit's stomach growled. "The worst part of it is… I'm still hungry!"

Dark Pit rolled his eyes and cupped his cheek.

"If you've got any sugar or honey in there," Sheik called as she tore feathers from a carcass, "pass them over."

Both of the angels looked a little green. Those with "spicy angel wings" didn't particularly like watching birds being dressed for dinner, even if they were happy to eat the results. They did their best not to look.

"Hey, where's Samus?" Link wondered.

"Asleep on the bus," Dark Pit said. "Don't bother her. She gave us explicit instructions that no one is to see her sleep."

"That's odd…Does she sleep naked or something?"

"Nope! She likes to curl up in a little ball!" Pit exclaimed. "It's super-cute!"

"Piiiiiit!" his dark-half warned.

"Do not taunt happy fun ball!" Pit laughed.

* * *

><p>The group cooked and ate. The poultry was gamey and tough, but Zelda had roasted it well enough to be palatable, using what wild herbs she could find around the area to try to season it. She had turned back into her usual form after all the butcher-work had been done, more comfortable with cooking as herself than in her bodyguard form. Peach had surprisingly, stashed her tea-set and several teas in her personal storage, and so everyone was able to enjoy that, though Pit had longed for wine. Of course, almost everyone looked at him strangely for this, but as Dark Pit explained, it was a common drink in their land and had more of a healing effect on angels than the intoxicating effect it had on mortals.<p>

Of course, Link had missed a good Hylian ale. It had taken him a lot of convincing to finally get his bartender-friend in Castle Town to serve him some. Telma had been fairly strict in only giving him milk during his quest because a young Hero upon whom all the hopes of the land were pinned needed to have a clear head. Once Hyrule was at peace, she had let him have certain heroic privileges. He actually hadn't liked the brew, making faces whenever he drank it, but for some odd reason, here on this road trip, he missed it.

He was probably missing it for the inebriating effects, given everyone's situation. There was having a clear head and then there was the desire to forget or to not care.

Link finally got his sleep when the bus got rolling again just before sunset. Lucario did not sense any danger near, nor were any twitchy senses on the psychic children triggered. Mario was getting worried about the gas tank, however. Lucas pressed his face to one of the windows as Otto rolled past a huge field of sunflowers. They were in various stages of bloom, most of them unfurled with yellow pedals and drying seeds.

"Hey!" Ness said, "It must be a farm. I wonder if this is where the snack seeds they serve the spectators at the arena come from."

Lucas was just staring. Ness put a hand on his shoulder. Pit came up beside them, popped open one of the windows and winked.

"What is he doing?" Samus asked.

The white angel slipped out the window and powered up his wings. He flew into the field and disappeared among the yellow.

"He isn't trying to be left behind, is he?" Red asked.

A few pumps of wings sparkling with pale blue light among the plants told everyone who was watching out the windows that Pit was keeping pace with Otto, without a need for Mario to slow down. In a pinch, he came back in through the window, leaves in his hair and a large bouquet of sunflowers in his arms. This, he handed to Lucas.

Lucas clutched the stems close and started sniffling and then weeping in earnest. He gently set the sunflowers aside on an empty seat and just about crushed Pit in a mighty hug. "Oh, Pit! Thank you!" he cried. "You really are an angel!"

Pit gave a small chuckle and helped the child pick up the plants again. "I thought you would like some. We can probably get Squirtle to give them some water… put them in one of Link's empty bottles or something…"

"Ooh, is this special?" Peach crooned.

Ness fielded the question. "Sunflowers remind Lucas of his mother… who is no longer with us."

"Oh," Peach sighed sadly.

"You knew this?" Dark Pit asked his brother.

"Well… yeah," Pit said. "It's called listening. You know, instead of just keeping to yourself and being all Mr. Independent all the time."

Dark Pit's wings flared, the feathers ruffled. "Maybe I've been too busy cataloguing the contents of our bags so we know how much ammo we've got and how many supplies are available to us for a lot of chit-chat."

"I miss my Mom," Ness said causally. "I can't even call her from here. She'll probably hear about what happened at the mansion and she won't even know I'm okay!"

"My mom doesn't even know I packed clean underwear," Red sighed. "You know, when I first set out on my Pokemon Journey, I didn't keep in contact much. I was glad to be free. Mom sent me messages sometimes over computer, usually with some little gift for my Pokemon. I started calling her back after a while… I'd get homesick."

Lucario seemed to be remembering something from long ago, but chose not to share – letting his powerful aura shield his thoughts.

"Grandma and Aryll…" Toon Link muttered. "The pirates will take care of them. They promised me."

Link, snorting awake, apparently had picked up on the conversation. "I lost my family when I was very young," he said. "There was a disease that hit Ordon Village one winter. I lost both my parents and almost died from it, myself. If it weren't for the people of the village, I would have given up. After watching Dad die, I was ready to let the sickness take me. I found a new family there… was adopted, even got a little brother. There was this green glass necklace that my mother would wear. I gave it to my 'Mama Uli.' It gave me a sense of closure.

Lucas walked over to him and gave him one of his sunflowers. Link took it with a tearjerking smile. The little boy sat back down in his seat next to Ness with his flowers.

"My father left me a kingdom," Zelda sighed, "But I'd give up ruling it to have him back."

"I don't know what having a mortal family is like," Pit said, letting his wings droop as he leaned over a seat, his knees on his own. "I have Lady Palutena, but my relationship with her is… complicated. She's kind of like a mother, but also a best friend, a boss and above all, my goddess. You can't really treat a goddess like you can a mom."

"That's because you're a worshipful idiot," Dark Pit said, putting a hand on his arm. "But you have me."

"Good thing we didn't kill each other, huh?"

"Don't remind me of Palutena's stupid orders."

* * *

><p>The night for Otto and his passengers was zombie-free out in the badlands. Mario found something wonderful, yet dubious. The group was very careful disembarking the bus. They kept their weapons drawn as they crept around the place, hoping they wouldn't be surprised by any undead "friends" lurking in the shadows.<p>

Red was the first inside the abandoned convenience store. The lights came up and everybody cheered when the blessed element of light flooded the general area, showing no danger. The young man got into the system that controlled the fuel tanks and flipped them on. This was even more important than the lights.

When the light showed the store front on the station, Link made some rather interesting noises. Zelda couldn't help but giggle, steadying her knight by gripping his shoulder. He looked like he was about to faint.

"What in the name of Din, Farore and Nayru?" he puzzled, "Holy Mother of Hylia! How did that little bugger get all the way out here? And in this world?"

Staring back at the Hylians was a poster on the door depicting a face that had become well-known in Castle Town back home. When they looked up, even with a few missing letters, the outlines of what was missing in bolts and rust made it clear that Otto had happened upon a "Malo Mart Convenience, Gas and Diesel."

Link shrugged his shoulders and gesticulated with his hands. "JUST HOW?" he demanded. Hyrule didn't even have the level of technology that the universe of the Hands did. The Malo Link knew had never encountered gasoline or diesel-powered vehicles.

At least the song wasn't playing.

That is, until Red hit something fiddling with the systems in the back room.

"_Shop smmaaaart! Shop at the Maaaaalo Mart_!"

It was quickly shut off, for fear that it might attract predatory undead attention. The Pokemon Trainer had triggered it entirely by accident.

While Link was having his mind-screw, Lucario was leading the young ones to the toilet and the Pits were raiding the store for food – eating many packages of it along the way. Mario lugged some extra diesel cans he'd found onto the back of the bus, stowing them in a spare bag of holding after fueling up. Peach used the employee sink to clean up her face and hair.

Samus loaded a couple of hand-baskets with small yellow snack cakes. She gave Link a glare when she caught him staring at her. "I have to have my Twinkies," she said curtly.

In the end, the Malo Mart proved to be a fortunate find. The group had found fuel for their transport and fuel for their bodies, all without having to fight for it. Although their losses were still too fresh for them to be in a particularly celebratory mood, all of the Smash-survivors agreed that tonight had been a good night.

They played some music in the bus, having found some music discs in the store. There was music from many worlds there, including some that Mario remembered from the time before he took up life in the Mushroom Kingdom, back when he and Luigi kept a small apartment in a place called "Manhattan." He put in a disc of something he thought everyone might like.

Otto rolled on to _"Born to Run."_ The "tramps" aboard him shared beef jerky, fruit snacks and Twinkies all the way to sunrise.

* * *

><p><strong>You got the trophy for the second chapter! *Trophy falls* Continue? <strong>


	3. The Obligatory Hot Spring Episode

**ROAD TRIP**

"Is it? It IS! A HOT SPRING! IT'S A HOT SPRING!"

Everyone's heads turned from maintenance on the bus (it was sputtering and steaming, forcing them all to stop) to the forest beyond the road. One of their number had decided to do a little exploring. Judging from the excited yelling, Pit was ecstatic.

"A hot spring?" Dark Pit questioned. He took off in a run toward the sound of the splash that followed his brother's yelling, jumping over logs and brambles. "Outta my way!"

"What has a' gotten them so excited?" Mario asked, taking off his hat and wiping his brow.

"A chance for a hot bath, I take it," Samus said, dumping some water into the radiator. "Could be a chance to get some extra water into storage, too." She wasn't fully geared-up in the power armor this morning, only in the zero-suit and at the mention of a hot spring; she looked like she wanted to get out of it, as well. "Otto looks okay now. Most of the problem was that he was just a little thirsty. I think I'm going to check out what the featherballs are so happy about."

Mario blushed deeply. Link looked a little flustered and had his shield out before him. He'd been standing guard, not that there was anything to guard against in the daytime, but he still felt the need to be vigilant. Zelda tugged his ear, hard. Red was just kind of staring after Samus as she left toward the forest. Lucario, Ness and Lucas were playing with the dog. Toon Link looked up to his elder version. "Link, are you alright?"

"Yeah," he said. "We should probably check out what's going on."

"We should find a spot for us girls," Zelda suggested, "or else bathe in turns."

A quick look around confirmed the boringness of the situation and thus everyone headed to the woods to see what their resident chatty white-winged angel had discovered. Indeed, in a cleft of rocks and mud there was a large pool of steaming clear water. Pit and Dark Pit were in it, fully-clothed, having a splash-fight. Duckie ran toward the spring at full-tilt and jumped in with a giant splash.

"Shouldn't we strip down or something?" Toon Link asked innocently.

This caught Pit's attention. "Uh…maybe…uh…" he blushed. "I kind of like to double-task and do laundry at these things, too," he said sheepishly. "Mostly it's the angels' code of conduct to always be ready to defend the goddess and…and…I can't do that naked…and…"

"Steps for enjoying a hot spring," Dark Pit interrupted. "Relax. Breathe deep. Remove pants."

"Dark!"

"They're your steps!" he protested. He looked to everyone else. "He… follows them at home, but around other people… he's shy. He even covers up if I step into the temple hot spring, though I've got the same stuff."

"Don't sound disappointed…" Pit whined. "I'm sure there are fangirls reading this beyond the Fourth Wall. You know the kind of fangirls I'm talking about - the ones who like us…uh… together even though we're related? I don't want to encourage them! The author of this isn't into that stuff! She's a genficcer!"

"That author sounds a little boring," Red teased. He let out his Squirtle for a swim and his Ivysaur for a drink. The Charizard didn't like water, so he stayed in his ball on shore.

Lucario had no wish to get his fur wet. He had his own grooming methods that he would not talk about, though everyone assumed that he was like cat in that respect.

Lucas eased himself into the water. He seemed to be glad that the removal of clothing was apparently not required. Ness hung his hat on a tree. Red stripped down to his undershorts. Link was eager to toss off his chain-mail, but kept his own medieval version of undershorts on, not much eager to "show off his sword" even though he had no problem showing off his torso-scars.

"Toon!" Zelda protested when the young mini-hero stripped himself down to starkers, not even caring.

"Those clothes are hot!" he protested," and not in the good way like a hot spring!" He did a cannonball into the water.

Zelda followed Peach to the portion of the spring that was behind a large, concealing rock. They found Samus already there, stripped down in murky water in the shadows. She was glad for a good, hot bath, but didn't seem to want to show anyone what a body containing the various interesting kinds of DNA that hers did really looked like. The other women joined her for dignified bathing as they listened to the raucous cries of the boys on the other side of the boulder.

Pit had made a game of snatching Dark Pit's laurel-crown and tossing it into the depths of the pool so people could dive for it. Dark Pit was not amused by this, especially since his wings created drag in the water and proved to be too buoyant for him to be a quick diver. Red and Ness laughed and played keep-away, prompting cries of "I'll kick your tails to the Underworld!" followed by everyone, Dark Pit included, laughing.

Link just relaxed against a rock and almost fell asleep in the warm water. Mario, similarly stripped to shorts and resting on the same rock, nudged the Hylian awake.

When everyone started getting a little wrinkly, they began getting out, drying off and dressing. After all, there should never be too much fanservice in a fan fiction. Duckie seemed determined to get everyone wet again with his shaking-off. When the women met up with the men and boys everyone discussed breaking for lunch out of the rations they had decided upon for themselves and getting their rotation of sleep in.

Lucario stiffened up. He definitely felt something bad approaching them, but he dismissed the kind of auras he'd sensed as his imagination due to stress, since they were under daylight. He'd had a bad dream last night and considered that he might be having a hangover from it. The truth was, he did not want to believe he was sensing the auras he'd just caught a whiff of nearby.

The dog, of course, was the first to act upon sensing something amiss. He stiffened, on-point as a hunting hound does when it has scented something interesting. After that, he started barking his head off. Slipping on his mail and tunic and taking up his sword, Link turned his head to where the dog's snout was pointed. The Hylian Hero tensed up, apparently the first to see what the dog had smelled.

The eyes.

Eyes stared at them all from the bushes and brambles around the spring.

"This isn't supposed to be…" Link whispered. "This isn't supposed to be! They only come out at night! Pit, didn't you say their skin kept them out of the sun?"

"I thought that!" Pit replied, "But…"

A large group of bodies burst out of the bushes and they weren't just those random residents of Smash City they did not know. Some of "their own" were in the mix. All of the country Villagers who had arrived for the tournament advanced on them, male and female, their eyes dull and dead. Link would say that their eyes had always been like that – rather unnerving – but this time, they came paired with pale skin and black-bleeding little cuts on the faces of their owners. Various "Miis" joined them – those fighters with the strange connection to Those That Lived Beyond the Fourth Wall. Apparently, the "favorite color" of all of them was now gray.

Most tragic of all was the monster wearing the denim overalls and green hat.

"Luigi!" Peach gasped. Mario was speechless with horror. The body of what had once been Luigi seemed to hesitate, but still stared and moaned with a gaping mouth.

"Run," Link commanded, readying the Master Sword. "Run to the bus, now! Samus, get it started!"

Red and Dark Pit grabbed Mario and dragged him. Ivysaur wrapped his vines around him. He fought them until Dark put one of the blades of his divided bow against his throat and made a hollow threat. Lucario readied an aura sphere to give Link some backup. The two nodded to one another, ready to fight off the small horde while the others got to Otto.

Then Peach did a damnfool thing.

"Luigi!" she cried, running toward the zombiefied man. Link was too busy decapitating a blonde Mii with eyeglasses that had leapt for him to stop her. Lucario's energy attack slammed into two of the Villagers and some of the random Smash City folks. The remaining zombies swarmed over Peach as she held the remains of Luigi, sobbing. Luigi, for his part, had his teeth locked firmly into her left arm.

That's when Pit, who'd taken to one of the trees, came down like lightning. He slammed down into the former plumber and kicked him off her. Various Miis, one of the Villagers and random people clawed at him as he practically shoved Peach into Link's arms. "Get her out of here!" he commanded, "I'll fight them off!"

Link did as commanded, stowing his sword and shield and carrying the copiously-bleeding Peach bridal-style. Pit looked and acted like a silly kid most of the time, but there were times that he showed that he was a soldier. The way he'd barked at Link meant nothing less than "Obey."

Halfway to the bus, Link realized he'd just been treated like a random centurion-private.

Link vaulted into the open back of Otto and deposited Peach in one of the front seats. Samus was at the wheel as Mario was curled into a ball of shaking and weeping – a rather distressing sight for everyone to see their designated leader in. Samus started the bus rolling.

"What are you doing?" Link demanded, "Lucario and Pit are still back there!"

"We have to go, NOW, Link!" Samus shot back. "Those things are going to be on our tail!"

"I don't want to make any more sacrifices! Not today!"

Lucario ran up behind the bus and launched himself in on his athletic legs.

"Pit?" Dark Pit asked. He was charging up his wings, ready to jump out and find his twin, even if it meant the possibility of being left behind. Lucario shook his head and grabbed him by the arm to try to stop him.

Meanwhile, everyone else was tending to Peach. Someone had gotten Otto's mandatory first aid kit. Ness, Lucas and Zelda were charging up their healing energies. Toon Link was rummaging through one of their bags for healing items used on the stages. The monarch of the mushroom kingdom was in bad shape. A large chunk of flesh had been torn out of her forearm and she was losing a lot of blood. Link took off his belt and tied a tourniquet just above the wound – something he knew was a last-ditch thing because it could end up costing her the entire arm in the long run.

"Is she just bit?" Samus asked, not looking, paying attention to the road ahead.

"Well, it doesn't look like there's any sign of infection," Red said.

"Will I…" Peach asked weakly and desperately, "turn…. Turn into one of those things?"

"No, honey," Zelda assured, rubbing her shoulder. "We're going to heal you up and purge your system and you'll be just fine."

Pit flew through the double-doors on wings that were losing their blessing. He landed heavily. Ness was quick to the back doors to close them.

The angel stood in the aisle, holding his twin scimitars at his sides. They were coated in black, sticky ichor. He stared ahead and muttered. "Dead eyes, dead eyes, dead eyes…" Aside from a few bramble-scrapes he looked unhurt, that is, until Dark Pit noticed the blood staining the white feathers of the upper portion of his right wing and dripping down the edges of the long flight-feathers.

"Hey!" he called to everyone who was fawning over Peach, "Pit is hurt! Help me with him!"

"Dead eyes, dead eyes, dead eyes…"

"Snap out of it!" Dark Pit demanded, snapping his fingers in front of Pit's face. Zelda came over as the black-winged angel forced the white-feathered one down into a seat and sat next to him.

"Pit…too…" Pit said, dropping his blades and clinging to his twin's shoulders.

"Yeah, it's me," Dark said in a tone more gentle than his usual one.

Pit winced as Zelda examined the wounded wing. It jerked, sending a few loosened, tiny fluffy feathers off to dance in the air of the bus. "It looks like just a superficial cut," Zelda said. "Hold still and I'll work an old Hylian spell I know on you."

Pit's attention was on his darker half. "Pittoo… their eyes… Luigi he was…"

"You saved the damsel," Dark Pit assured.

"Pit," Zelda asked, "Are you…okay? I mean, in your mind…. I mean. You look really shaken."

"Lady Zelda?" Pit asked. "I wasn't bit, was I? I mean… the infection..."

"Peach was bitten," Zelda said dourly. "We think she's going to be okay. The wound was torn-away. We're healing her with everything we've got. I think you're going to be okay. You aren't hurt nearly as bad, just scratched up and cut a little bit."

"I don't want to turn," Pit said desperately. "I… the eyes… They were like the eyes I had before!"

"Hmmm?" Zelda inquired.

Dark Pit let his twin lean on his shoulder after Zelda finished cleaning up his wing. "We had a run in with an enemy that could possess people," he explained, "back in our world. What it did to Pit put me in a coma, so I didn't see it all first-hand. Actually, what it put me into was this weird state where I didn't exist, but was aware I didn't exist. I know that sounds impossible. Pit, on the other hand…"

"I was in a ring!" Pit said, gasping. He looked up to Zelda. "The Chaos Kin put my soul to sleep in a little golden ring. When I woke up, anything that touched the ring was something I could possess. I kind of body-surfed between people… and a dog… and…and…" Pit looked down and winced, trying to regain his composure. "I found my body, but it was… it was being used. Without me in it, it destroyed cities and killed a lot of innocent people. I borrowed the massive muscles of a super-strong friend of mine and we… beat me up together so I could go back in. I'll never forget looking at my own eyes through those of Magnus. They were like the eyes of the infected people, all flat and empty. Today I saw them up close… and the Villager-kids…and Luigi…."

Zelda rubbed his back, massaging the bases of Pit's wings with her long, gentle fingers. "Easy…"

Pit held his hands in front of himself. "There's a lot of innocent blood on these hands, Lady Zelda."

"All I see is a bit of zombie-ichor." She lowered a wetted cloth to him. "And I can say the same for mine."

This got the attention of both of the angels.

Zelda began her story. "When Link was on his quest to save my land from the Twilight Invasion, Midna, his companion, was mortally wounded by one of our enemies. I gave the last of my life-force to save her. As a result, my soul ended up piggybacking on her body for a while. I was in a state of nonexistence, yet aware of it. When Midna and Link faced Ganondorf, he had my body. He used his magic to make it into a puppet and had it fight Link. He even used my own magic to hurt him. Did you see that scar he has on his left shoulder? The one that looks like a stab-wound right by his collarbone? I did that to him…"

Pit put a newly-washed hand over hers and smiled sadly. "I'm glad you got your body back, too," he said.

"We've both had our bodies violated," Zelda said. "It doesn't define who we are."

"Go see to Peach," Pit said tiredly. He edged closer to Dark Pit, who instead of edging away like he usually did when his lighter half was feeling "cuddly," wrapped his arms and his wings around him.

Link was wrapping up Peach's arm in heavy bandages. He took the tourniquet off her and wove some of the bandages into a sling. Toon Link had found half a red potion in one of the bags and offered it to her, not knowing if it would work on someone from her world. Mario sat with her, wringing his hat in his hands. When the red potion seemed to perk Peach up and she no longer looked like she would die on them, everyone gravitated to other seats, leaving them to talk quietly with each other. Everyone was in grief, but somehow, the others thought, those two had the most to mourn.

The music was turned on… still on the disc that they were playing the night before.

_Everything dies, baby, that's a fact. Maybe everything that dies someday comes back… _

Although it was a very good song on any other day, the music was promptly turned off.

Link sat with his elbows on his knees in his tunic stained in Peach's blood. "Daytime," he said to himself. "They're moving in the daytime now… What are we going to do?"

"I'd say always be on guard," Red said, mulling a pokeball around in his hand. "It's like being out in the field collecting Pokemon. Wild ones will jump out of the grass without warning and you've always gotta be ready in case there's a rare one you haven't catalogued yet. I've been woken up in camp more than once by something that didn't like me in its territory."

"You haven't exactly been good for fighting lately," Link groused. "You're supposed to be first, best Pokemon Master. Why don't you let out your pets to help us once in a while?"

"You might be borderline suicidal, Mr. Hero," Red countered, "But my 'pets' rely on me. They trust me. I want to risk them getting infected as little as possible."

"When we stop to rest again, if Mario won't do it, I'll take over and make you take first watch!"

Toon Link, meanwhile was dangling his legs off a seat, polishing his version of the Master Sword and looking at the Pits. The two angels had fallen asleep in each other's arms. Pit needed to recover from his injuries, although he'd been healed mostly up by Zelda. Dark Pit just had nothing better to do and wanted to be on alert later, should the need arise.

"On the practice stages, I thought they were trying to kill each other," he said to Lucario, in the seat across from him.

Lucario nodded sagely and spoke deeply. "Pit is more distressed about not being able to speak with his goddess than he allows himself to show. He is very lonely. Dark can sense this and is being protective. He is trying to be strong for his brother. He cares more than he lets on most of the time."

Otto rolled on, Hyrule on the horizon, much too far away to see.

* * *

><p><strong>You got the Zombie Luigi trophy! Congratluations! Continue?<strong>

* * *

><p><em><strong>For anyone wondering, yes, Link killed my 3DS Mii. The "background music" on the bus so far for you young ones andor people not in America and familiar with American culture - Springsteen. I am planning on having other artists show up in the random/relevant musical lyrics. **_


	4. Fallout and Friendly Fire

**Notes**: Sorry to keep you waiting. I know I've not gotten this chapter out as quickly as previous chapters. This was due to a rare weekend of "having a life" of sorts. Went to an event held by a relation of mine and then had the relation over for a visit. He brought his PS3 and, well, I've newly developed a little gaming-crush on _Fallout: New Vegas_. This story was already set in a wasteland, but if this and future chapters start getting a little more "stylishly bleak" in setting, you know why.

Sadly, the game left with my houseguest, to await me next time.

Strangely enough, the "nuclear" events in this chapter *weren't* inspired by my weekend gaming experience, but by events I remember being in _Organ Trail_, the online flash Oregon Trail-parody this was inspired by.

* * *

><p><strong>ROAD TRIP<strong>

"Peach is just a little sick! We can't condemn her without seeing it out!"

"If she's turning, she'll become a danger to us all!"

"What do we do with her? We can't KILL her, we just can't!

"We can just leave her behind…"

"That's as good as killing her! Plus, whatever remains of her would likely chase us down, target us!"

"This is ridiculous! We leave no man – or woman – or Pokemon – or dog… behind!"

"Arf!"

"Fine by your honor, soldier-boy, but you were hurt, too…"

"Zelda healed me. I'm not sick. My wing's as good as new and I'm as healthy as ever."

"I'll keep trying to purge it out of her."

"Zelda… you're getting weak. At this rate, you're going to destroy yourself!"

"We're helping! Just because we're 'just kids' doesn't mean you shouldn't let us take this over!"

"What she has… it's really aggressive."

The argument inside Otto had many voices and had been going back and forth for at least three hours. That was how long everyone had been stuck, hunkering up inside against the cold. Those who had cloaks and blankets used them. Ness and Lucas used Lucario's body and aura for warmth. Toon Link cuddled up with Duckie. The angels had it especially bad, being dressed as lightly as they were. They shivered, huddled next to each other with their small wings drawn over their bodies as much as they could cover. Neither of them was feeling particularly "cuddly" anymore, but probably would wind up in a brotherly embrace before the storm was through out of simple necessity.

The bus was stranded. Snow was steadily falling and the road was impassible without a plow. Strange lights had flashed a few nights ago in the direction of Smash City, well after the crew of Otto had left the ill-fated hot spring. There was something definitely going on there – perhaps some last ditch effort left in place by the order of the Hands or a strike by one of the outside worlds to quell the infection and its effects. As it was, the sun had not risen today. If it had, it was behind a cloak of thick cloud. It was as pitch as midnight and it was three-thirty in the afternoon. Everyone speculated that the cloud may have been dust and vapor stirred up by whatever had transpired in the city. With the artificial darkness had come snowflakes, only a few at first that had built up to a blizzard.

No one knew what had happened. When someone turned on the radio to try to get Smash City's broadcast, there was no news, but there wasn't static, either. There was, strangely enough, old-timey music. Some of it was about riding off into the sunset with one's sweetheart; some of it was about luck. It wasn't any of the themes they'd heard playing on the tournament stages.

Link took off his cloak – a tattered red one that he was seldom seen with, and only outside of the arena-games. He tossed it at the Pits. "Here."

"We don't need your charity," Dark Pit groused.

"Yes, we do," Pit protested, taking the cloak and quickly wrapping himself and his reluctant, weakly squirming brother up in it. "Thanks."

"No problem. Dark looked like he was turning a little blue. It's not a good idea to get hypothermic. It's likely we'll need you both on the roof to fight if we get caught out here, so both of you - get warm."

Dark looked a little happier at the mention Link made of there being a practical reason to give up his cloak, rather than just pity.

"Are you going to be alright, Link?" Pit asked.

"I'll be fine. I have more layers of clothing than you do."

Link glanced over to where Mario was holding Peach. She shivered slightly, not from cold, because her dress had enough under-layers to warm her - but because she'd been crying. The plumber had the princess' head on his shoulder.

"It's alright, princess," he said as he rubbed her back. "We're gonna take care of you. I'm not a' gonna let anyone leave you behind."

The princess choked and gasped. She'd gotten pale and had been throwing up in the snow outside earlier. She was shivery and twitchy with what looked like the flu. Her arm was still wrapped and useless. Everyone was aware that the "flu" might not be a simple influenza and, in fact, probably wasn't. Healing powers and items were just not working on her.

"Some people got bit and didn't turn into zombies," Ness spoke up. "Remember the news casts when things were starting to turn bad? And Doctor Mario was able to purge it from Marth, right?" He blew and popped a pink bubble from some of the Malo Mart's stash of gum he'd grabbed and had been using. "It gave me some hope."

"Yeah!" Toon Link said. "And Red, wasn't he able to save some of the stage-Pokemon?"

"Yes, he was. I just hope they all got out of there okay and that they could save themselves."

Everyone sighed as they thought of the various people they'd simply lost contact with. The swordsman Ness had mentioned might not have succumbed to zombie-infection, but he very well could have become meat for them if he wasn't able to get out of the mansion like they had. Considering the flashes earlier, if he and the other tournament fighters hadn't gotten out of the city, they were likely dead.

Red licked his dry lips. "I watched the doc deal with a Gogoat. It was actually starting to turn… eyes going dead, leaves falling off its hide. He just kept using healing items on it and it came back."

"So, there's a chance," Zelda said, yawning.

"Take it easy," Samus said. She glared at Ness and Lucas, as well. "You, too. Pace yourselves. Like Link said, we can't have you draining yourselves dry. Besides, I think she's looking a little better already."

That was the moment when Peach took a big bite out of Mario's left shoulder. He shouted in surprise and pain. Before he could raise a struggle, Peach snarled, tearing in and down.

The interior of Otto was chaos. Everyone was either yelling or jumping into action. Toon Link and Link grabbed Mario and pulled him away. Peach looked up with blood running down her chin. Her eyes were flat and emotionless. She made a guttural growl like a beast. Duckie leapt toward her and grabbed her by the leg with his jaws. The angels braced themselves with their swords and put themselves in front of Ness, Lucas and Lucario. Red made ready to deploy a Pokemon, but before he could remove a ball from his belt, Samus had taken her hip-blaster and fired the deciding shot.

Peach just looked confused with half a skull. She turned and with one good eye, glared at Samus, who could have sworn the princess was trying to say, without sound "How could you?"

The flat eye looked too dead to convey betrayal, though it did not matter to the small clench in Samus' heart. She fired again and the corpse of Peach stayed down.

"How's Mario?" she panted.

The Links had taken their friend behind one of the seats. They didn't answer. Pit didn't wait for an answer; he crept up on them and looked past them. Both the Links were muttering something in tandem.

"Din, Farore, Nayru…" they said, "From Farore's Life to Nayru's Wisdom… May the Power of Din grant your spirit rest…May the Light of Hylia…"

When Pit saw what they were doing and caught a glimpse beyond Link's shoulders, he immediately fell to his knees in Otto's aisle and began reciting a prayer to Palutena in something that sounded to the rest like some form of Ancient Greek. It did not seem to matter to him that Palutena was unlikely to hear it and would not be able to answer.

Curious, Red looked past them all. He took off his hat, put it over his face and tried to quell his nausea.

Mario's shoulder had been torn down to the clavicle. His windpipe had a sizeable hole in it. At least there wasn't any chance for him to become infected, as it was, ironically, a living invasion that did not take already fatally damaged bodies. Peach, apparently, had just wanted a snack.

"I'll go out," Samus said dully, "dig a couple of graves. The snow's stopped."

"I'll come with you," Dark Pit said. He wasn't as much into rites and prayers as his twin was, to say nothing of the Hylians. Zelda had begun singing something sad in Ancient Hylian.

The children of psi hugged each other and cried.

Lucario meditated on the matter.

Red was busy continuing to get sick in the snow right outside of Otto's passenger-doors.

The dog howled, long and loud and then he howled long and loud again.

* * *

><p>The impromptu funeral went quietly, without invasion by any enemies. The graves were simple, dug mainly by Pokemon-claws and the paws of Duckie. They were marked with splintered old boards the kids found to fashion into markers. The group burned symbols into them. The Links allowed the tips of their swords to be heated by Red's Charizard and they burned the symbol for the tournament into the wood and symbols resembling mushrooms with eyes before marking down the names in the common language of the Hands' land.<p>

Red's Squirtle was used to hose the blood out of the bus.

After that was taken care of, the remaining Smashers left quickly, for fear of company. Link took the wheel of the bus. He sorely wanted something to do to keep his mind off the day's events. The snow had melted off the road fairly quickly after it had stopped falling. There were still some slick patches to worry about, but he was glad that he'd learned to drive this thing during one of their early rest-stops, or at least, the basics. Samus watched him carefully. He insisted upon the task. The road ahead of him was a focus for him to keep his vision clear.

Samus had liked Mario and Peach well enough, but she knew what everyone else did. Mario had been one of Link's dearest friends. Both the plumber-hero and the princess, in fact, had some friendship with Link's _ancestors_ of all people. Due to characters being chosen by the Hands for the Smash tournaments outside of space and time, Mario had been privileged to know the Hero of Time – someone who was only a legend to the current Link. To say that the Mushroom Kingdom and Hyrule had very strong relations with each other would be an understatement.

It was Pit who tried to console Princess Zelda. Peach had been one of her best friends. She let him hug her tightly and he let her stroke his wings. She did so methodically. Dark Pit did his own methodical thing. He checked and re-checked all their supply-bags for healing supplies and weapons. He also kept polishing his staff – which was not a euphemism for something naughty: He'd found his favored weapon in among the mess of the bags of holding and was making sure it was in good condition. It was a weapon so favored by him that he simply called it the "Dark Pit Staff."

"Careful," Toon Link told Zelda. "I think you're petting Pit too hard. He's losing feathers."

"Huh?" Pit asked, looking up from Zelda's shoulder. He looked to the seat he was on and the floor to see some of his smaller feathers scattered about, as if someone had lightly beaten a pillow.

"I'm sorry, Pit," Zelda said.

"Uh, no problem?" he questioned. "I didn't even feel them come loose. They were probably due for a molt."

"That's kind of a lot," Toon Link observed. "Angels don't have a molting season, do they? Sometimes, Rito get like that."

"Not really. The feathers just kind of come loose when they need to."

"Then Lady Zelda might be petting too hard. She's gonna pet you bald!"

Pit pouted. "You sound like Lady Palutena. She liked to tease me about my wings going bald. I take it from her, 'cause she's my goddess, but you're being kind of mean."

"Toon, maybe you should go sit with Samus for a while. I think she may need a friend right now," Zelda said.

Toon Link shook his head. "She thinks of me as a bratty kid. Besides, she's in the front, watching big brother."

The radio switched to a pre-recorded commercial.

"_You bought it! You're smart! You bought it at the Maaaaalo Mart!" _

Link choked out an angry battle-cry and punched the radio with a free hand. Toon Link leapt into action, pulling his brother's hand back before he got his knuckles too bloody. "Easy!" he cried out. "You're gonna hurt yourself!"

Lucas grabbed a music disk and shoved it. Link sighed and stopped his rage as something a little more soothing played.

"What was that about?" Samus asked. She'd enabled her armor quite a while ago. She didn't want anyone to see her face. A helmet made a good concealment for emotion. She was supposed to be the "tough one" of this crew, calm, collected. She was a destroyer of infectious and dangerous organisms. She was known for slaughtering space pirate crews and blowing up the occasional planet. She had done today precisely what needed to be done and was glad to bear the burden. However, the fact was that she had put down someone she'd counted as a friend. She'd found Peach to be obnoxious most of the time, but no one she ever thought she'd end up killing.

The bus started to swerve as Link as hunched over the wheel and started weeping openly and bitterly. Samus stood up and pulled him out of the driver's seat to take over. Toon lead him to one of the seats in the back and started sniffling again as he pulled bandages from one of the medical kits and started cleaning and bandaging his elder's slightly bloodied hand.

"I hate the Malo Mart jingle, too," he whispered. "It's worse than Beedle's shop-music."

This earned him a small smile.

Pit inexplicably started singing along with the music from the disc that was now playing; only he started changing the words.

"_We all live in a yellow bus named Otto, a yellow bus named Otto, a yellow bus named Otto…" _

Ness and Lucas started laughing. This started more laughter – a release, of sorts.

"I've got a hole in me pocket!" Red joked. He had known this music. Enough of the Fourth Wall-breaking music was known in Smash City… though some of it was known well across a few of their respective worlds.

* * *

><p>The bus crossed into a strangely green country. The sun shone and the sky was blue. Pit had to assure everyone that they didn't all die. The bus hadn't driven off a cliff… while most of the crew was asleep, Link had taken the wheel again and had delivered them to what looked like one of the other worlds – an un-sealed-off one through which they'd passed a barrier. They had a hard time figuring out where they were. It looked like one of the territories some of them had passed through during the debacle with the Subspace invasion. Link wondered if it might have been a part of Sonic's country or even his younger counterpart's New Hyrule. If it was the latter, it wouldn't serve them for what they sought, being that the Triforce had been "lost" in that world.<p>

Link did some hunting with Duckie as his trusted hunting-hound. Together, they brought down a young doe, which Link skinned and dressed, stowing the venison in a food bag that was getting light. The bags of holding kept things fresh indefinitely, so he could drag out the carcass and cut off chops and bits as needed.

Of course, the hunting trip was cut short when a pack of zombies showed up, perhaps drawn by the smell of blood at Link's butcher-tree. Everyone was back on the bus, firing from the windows and the back. The "psi-brothers" gave some of the undead a good PK Fire and PK Freeze, respectively. Thankfully, there wasn't anyone any of the group actually knew in the horde as they saw it, though Red thought he'd sighted a twin-tailed fox.

When the "guardian" angels came down from the bus roof after the action was over, Pit was moving a bit sluggishly.

"_We're free to fly the crimson sky, the sun won't melt our wings tonight…" _

Pit made a face at the song that was playing as Samus pulled him next to her on a seat and let him rest against her armor. "Tough out there?" she asked. She was in her "big sister mode."

"A little," the winged boy answered. "I've just been getting a little tired lately. I don't know why. I think it might be because I haven't been near Lady Palutena."

"Pit misses his mommy?" Samus teased.

"At least everyone likes to mess with me like she does. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

"Come on," Dark Pit said from seat across the aisle. He held up Link's red cloak. "Get some rest with me. You'll stay warmer and sister-Sam can do her own little weird ball-thing."

"Can't. Keeping first watch. Making sure Link doesn't drive us off a cliff."

Night fell and those that could get their rest tried to. Dark Pit was being particularly nice to him, Pit noticed as he sidled up next to him in a seated position beneath the cloak, sharing the warmth of their wings. He wondered if he'd noticed how sick he was starting to feel. It had the white angel worried. He didn't let on about it. He didn't want anyone to worry.

Dark was drifting off, his head titled back, soft snores. Pit hadn't quite noticed how _warm _his brother was before. Or how he _smelled_. A tiny growl burbled up in Pit's stomach. Dark smelled really good to him right now. It was a strange odor, not what he expected. There was the usual soft scent of feathers. Dark had been keeping himself clean, so it wasn't dirt or BO. There was a slight odor of sweat, but mostly he smelled of blood and it had become a strangely _savory_ scent.

In the dimmed light of the bus, Pit watched his brother's throat flash and felt his chest move up and down against his own side. Why was he so hungry? He'd eaten his ration for dinner with the others and he knew that he shouldn't have any more food. Lately, as well as tired, he'd been getting hungry all the time. His twin's warmth against him set him to thinking about the coursing blood beneath his skin and tender muscles, relaxed in sleep. Dark Pit was smart, too… probably had a nice, big fatty brain.

Pit jumped away instantly. He backed away, toward the back of the bus.

"Pit, are you alright?" Samus asked from her seat.

"Yeah, yeah," the angel struggled. "I'm just… the ration tonight was too small. I'm too hungry to sleep."

"We all get what we get," Link said from the driver's seat, not taking his eyes off his task.

"I really, really need something, pleeeease?"

"One cookie," Samus commanded. "The cookie-pack should be in the small bag."

The sounds of Pit's rummaging peaked her attention. "I said it's the small bag, it shouldn't be hard to find, even in the dim light."

"Garrghgll! Rwarreaggh!"

"What in all the realms of your Hades is going on back there?"

Link pulled over and flipped on the lights to full. Sleepy children, Pokemon and a dog woke up.

"Huh? Wha?" Dark Pit said blearily as he found his seat empty.

Everyone, including Link, walked toward the back of the bus. There was Pit, having emptied one of the larger bags, hunched over the venison carcass tearing into it like a scavenging bird.

He looked up with a few threads of raw meat in his teeth and asked "What?"

* * *

><p>"Those are just his eating habits!" Dark Pit protested.<p>

Dawn had come with the Fellowship of the Bus arguing again. The coast was clear and everyone was off on their own business among the green-grass hills and a dirt-road stretch, stretching their legs, gathering food and water, looking out for danger and trying to take the edge off the rigors of their journey.

And, of course, the fights. Dark Pit and Samus were hammering it out with each other so angrily that they'd actually started something of a Smash-stage fight, without the benefit of the stage or an arena audience. The rest of the Smashers decided to steer clear of them instead of cheer. The two fighters were exhausted now, but still yelling at each other.

"He's sick, Dark. He's showing all the early signs of it. I think the molting is a sign, too. We need to do something."

"He eats off the floor like that ALL THE TIME!" Dark emphasized. "Palutena and Viridi back home joke that he's 'Pit the Buzzard.' You don't even want to know what he does with ice cream, the little glutton."

"Raw meat?"

"Uh… sometimes… When a battle gets really fierce and there's nothing else around and he gets hungry enough, YEAH! This is Pit we're talking about! He's not exactly Mr. Etiquette."

"He can't have been that hungry last night," Samus said. Her voice was weary with worry. "What he was doing was frightening."

"If he is sick, then whose fault is that, huh?" Dark accused. He tapped Samus on her armored chest with the tip of his silver bow. "He got hurt at the hot spring. You drove off! You just… left him there!"

Samus looked down. "I… I had the rest of us to take care of, Dark. Also… I've known Pit long enough. I was sure he'd fight his way through and come back to us, just like he did, and if he… if he didn't… I knew that he wouldn't want to put the rest of us in danger, that he would take the sacrifice. Especially for you."

Dark Pit looked up into her visor. "You're right. Pit's pretty stupid that way. I don't know… what will happen to me if he turns."

"Maybe if we can hold him down and force enough potions down his throat, he'll come out of it. He wasn't wounded as badly as Peach was and he has angelic fortitude."

Lucario walked past them. "He is, indeed, stronger than a mortal; however, I've seen a darkening edge to his aura."

"Oh, no," Dark Pit said.

"I am afraid so," Lucario answered. "Your aura, however… is unaffected. I believe that you and he are differentiated now enough that you are… independent."

"It is always what I've wanted to be… from the very start."

"Then you may have your independence in full soon," the jackal-like creature intoned, "but if you'd rather have interdependence with your brother, you should act soon."

Dark smiled a wry smile. "You know what?" he said, "I've gotten used to the squirt. It kind of happens when you've saved each other's lives a few times."

* * *

><p>Link was sitting alone, thinking and trying to fashion a whistle out of a blade of grass. Pit, who had been "off foraging" or so he'd said, walked up toward him from beyond one of the hills.<p>

"Hey, Pit," Link said. His eyes widened and his jaw hung a bit. "You look so… haggard. Please, sit down. Is something the matter? Dark told me about how you get when you're really hungry, so… don't worry about it, okay? You barely put a dent in the deer. We'll still have plenty."

Pit sat down heavily next to the swordsman. "There's something I want to talk to you about. Link, look at me."

Link met him with a worried gaze. Pit was sounding serious. Pit was almost never serious, and when he was, it was typically a hot-blooded seriousness, not the solemn tone he was being given.

"Link," Pit began, "I'm not right. I can smell Reaper on me. I'm pretty sure I wasn't just cut on the wing… I think I was bit and I think it took. The infection's just coming up slower in me.

He started choking up.

"Lady Palutena usually helps me with stuff like this… stuff out of my control. I can't talk to her… I can't talk to her at all!"

"Easy. I'm sure there's some way she can hear you. Goddesses work in mysterious ways."

"Link, last night… I got into the venison because, well, I was sitting next to Dark, and I started getting hungry. For meat. For…living meat." Pit shook his head. "I was so worried I was going to hurt him… I had to do something."

"Maybe Zelda and the boys can try to heal you up."

"No, Link," Pit said, putting a hand over the Hylian's. "We saw what happened with Lady Peach."

Blue eyes met blue eyes, piercing.

"Link, I know this is a hard thing to ask, but… I want you to kill me."

* * *

><p><em><strong>You got the Scavenger Pit Trophy! When Floor Ice Cream doesn't cut it, try Floor Venison! Continue?<strong>_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Stop cryin'! It's only a fan fiction! <strong>_

_**Musical selection: The Beatles, U2.**_

_**Link's cloak courtesy of the Skyward Sword prequel manga in the Hyrule Historia. **_


	5. The Fellowship of the Feathers

**ROAD TRIP**

"What, Pit? Just… WHAT?" Link demanded, shaking his head vigorously.

"I don't want to put anyone in danger!" Pit answered, wings twitching. "And… I don't want to ever become… what I was… again." He sighed. "I told Zelda about it, and you, too, I think – about the time when something else took over my body?"

"Chaos Kin?" Link said.

"Yeah," Pit said. "That's how I know my body's still really strong even without my soul. It was destroying cities! Listen to me, Link. I don't want to _ever_ be possessed like that again! I don't want to have those dead eyes but still be technically alive! I… I want to die as myself, not un-myself. I can feel myself slipping. Please, Link. You're a hero. Help me."

"Why are you asking me this?" Link asked, his distress showing on all of his features. "If you want to die… why can't you do it yourself?"

Link bit his tongue, not believing what he'd just said.

For an answer, Pit parted his chiton and showed Link a tear in his undershirt. He pulled up the fabric to show a small, red cut on his side. "That's what I was trying to do when I was off alone," he said, far too serious to be Pit, Link decided. This was heavy stuff they were speaking of. Pit continued. "I put the tip of one of my bow-swords right here, between my ribs. I tried to thrust it up into my heart. I couldn't do it, Link. It wasn't me… My hands locked up. It's as if the zombie-survival-instinct stopped me."

"Pit…"

"I don't want to die, Link," Pit said, tears running down his cheeks. "But if I have to… to protect all of you… and Lady Palutena – I don't know if a goddess can get infected with this kind of thing, but I don't want to take any risks!"

"Why are you putting this on me?" Link asked again, angrily. "Samus is the cold hunter among us. She would understand, and she'd make it quick. Dark might be even more appropriate, since you and he are the day and the night."

Pit dried his tears and shook his head gently. "I can't ask Samus. She's like my big sister. She's also not taking what she had to do to Peach well. She hides it, holds up her chin and acts cold, but she hurts. Pittoo wouldn't be able to do it. When we first met, we tried to kill each other, but those days are over. Lucario thinks he's diff-diff…inti…something? Lucario thinks he's got his own soul enough now not to die if I die, but he's still my brother. Also, Link… I'm asking you because you're a terrific archer. You're great with arrows, like me! If it's all the same, I'd like to die by the weapon I most used. Sure, yours aren't the light arrows, but I don't think Zelda can muster up that much energy right now. And a club… well, that would just be overkill. I may like breakfast, but I don't want to be a pancake." Link's face told him the last bit of joking had fallen flat. "You're the best person I trust not to miss."

Link put a hand on one of Pit's shoulders and gently rubbed it. The angel could feel the calluses on his fingers caused by contact with bow-strings. "I want us to talk about this with the rest of the caravan."

Pit yelped. "What? No! I was hoping you'd take care of me right here! Out of the way! So the kids wouldn't have to see!"

Link regarded him sternly. "If I do that, Dark Pit will definitely murder me, in my sleep if necessary. No. You are a part of us."

With that, Link grabbed Pit by the arm and practically dragged him to where the rest of the group was hanging around the bus, eating, resting and doing maintenance. When Link explained the situation, Ness and Lucas tackled Pit and sent "psychic attacks" in the form of their healing moves into him. Those moves had not worked to save Peach, but they weren't about to lose one of their guardian angels without a fight.

Dark Pit, of course, beat him up. The kids had to subsequently heal him of bruises and scrapes, and attend, then, to Dark, since Pit had fought back.

Everyone got back on the bus and moved out.

* * *

><p>Over the next several days, Pit was given a regimen of healing moves by Lucas and Ness and healing magic by Zelda. He was given healing items and potions – whatever the group could find. Zelda even made a few with things gathered during their stops. They found another abandoned store and some abandoned houses. The Fellowship of the Bus did not stay long in that barren neighborhood for fear of what might be lurking there, but they took what supplies and medicines they could.<p>

Link, Samus and Red had arguments over the practicalities of the situation. Their friend was just getting worse. He now sat chained to the floor by his wrists in the back of the bus. It was a precaution and it came at his request. It got to the point where, even though the group had found some fresh supplies, Dark Pit, Red and Toon Link had to hold Pit down and force-feed him potions, since he started refusing to take them. "I don't want to waste stuff you guys will need later," he'd said.

Pit's skin started becoming pale and he'd molted off nearly all the feathers at the bases of his wings. He retained most of his plumage on the main portions of the wings, but he still looked threadbare. His eyes got bloodshot and the only food he could choke down was raw meat, forcing Link to hunt regularly, bringing back rabbits and squirrels and, to Red's angst, the occasional wild Pokemon.

Dark Pit knew something was terribly wrong when they'd managed to find some ice cream, but it only made Pit sick. He tried to eat it – and wound up vomiting all over the back of the bus.

When the fading angel started punctuating most of the ends of his sentences with growling and snarling and when he was found to be rubbing his wrists raw against his chains so he could lick up his own living blood, a decision was reached. Link tallied up votes on slips of paper everyone wrote on anonymously and placed in his hat. It was a narrow margin, decided by two votes, and Pit did, in fact, get a vote. He was still just enough himself to be able to.

When Samus parked the bus in a stretch that had turned back from the green hills into the barren desert with a clear view all around and no danger, Red kept first watch for everyone to rest. Before Link decided to at least try to get some sleep, he spoke with Pit.

Pit looked up to him with his eyes big and clear. "Thank you," he said.

Dawn came bright and clear, crisp and soundless. There was a funeral, but one of those rare kinds where guest of honor was alive to witness the mourning. Everyone filed out of the bus and stood at the roadside. Link nervously took assessment of his weapons, picking out for himself arrows with the sharpest tips.

Before anyone did anything else, Pit stretched his wings and greeted the dawn. He looked heavenward and started shouting. "Thanatos!" he cried. "If you can hear me, you had better be gentle with me! If you aren't, Lady Palutena will have your buns on a platter! And I swear, if you try anything funny, I will fight you! I don't care if I'm only a soul!"

This earned a small smile from Toon Link. Zelda just hid her face and sniffed back tears. Samus was holding Dark Pit in her armored arms – very hard. She was keeping him prisoner. He'd already been relieved of his weapons. Lucario was holding Ness and Lucas. Red was anxiously using a pair of spare pokeballs in his hand like Chinese stress-balls. The dog simply sat.

Link cleared his throat and addressed the crowd. "I want…" he began, struggling, "I want Pit to stand just where he is. I want everyone to come up to him and say your goodbyes. I also want everyone to stroke his wings – gently now, and to take a feather."

Link walked up to a confused Pit and gingerly plucked a long flight-feather from his right wing. He held it up. "This," he said "Will be the reminder of what we are fighting for. This will be the reminder to keep on surviving for those we have lost. We WILL make it to the Hyrule Safe Zone! We WILL remember everyone who has fallen!" Link tucked the feather into his tunic like a pin, treating it like a military service medal. "From this day forward, we are not just the Fellowship of the Bus. We are the Fellowship of the Feathers."

He then clapped Pit on the shoulder. "Farewell, Pit. You were a great fighter and an even greater friend. I have nothing but pain for what you've asked me to do, but I am honored that you asked me to do it."

Pit hugged him and tried not to think about succulent Hylian flesh beneath the tunic and the chain mail.

Lucario brought Ness and Lucas over. Pit bent down to hug Lucas while Ness snatched a few feathers.

"Who's gonna watch over us?" the blond child asked. "Angels aren't supposed to die!"

"You've always had your mother watching over you, and your brother, too," Pit whispered. "Don't worry. You're strong. You don't need me anymore."

He looked to Ness. "Maybe you two are just what Pittoo needs to watch over him, huh?"

"Your aura has always been like the purest light," Lucario intoned.

Red, for his part, was awkward. "I uh… Pit? If I ever catch and raise a really great Flying-type, I'll name it after you, okay? Something fierce and spirited, like a Talonflame, maybe. I'll teach it the Fly HM, too."

When Pit talked with Toon Link, Toon couldn't bear to say goodbye. Instead, they exchanged hats for a few minutes. "I think we did this in one of the author's other fanfics!" Pit said. "I didn't fare too well in that, either, but you fought in my memory and were a real fine little warrior."

They put their headgear back. Pit, after all, had wanted to die with his crown on.

"Lady Palutena said that you were a Goddess of Light once, too," he said to Zelda. "I'm sorry I didn't get to serve with you longer."

He pet Duckie and let the dog lick him on the face. He laughed at the ticklishness of the slobbery tongue as if today were like any other day. "Yeah, yeah, down now." He plucked one of his own feathers and stuck it in the dog's collar. Pit made a few soft barks and growls. "I was a dog once, too," he explained to everyone who was looking at him strangely – not that it explained much to those who did not know his last game's story.

"Don't blame yourself, big sister," he said to Samus. He addressed Dark Pit last. The latter was still struggling under Samus' grip.

"You are an idiot!" Dark Pit screamed. "Why are you so eager to get yourself killed? Where is the Pit who fought Hades, huh? I know you're in there! Where are you?"

Pit stroked his twin's cheek. "Pittoo… this is the me that burned off his wings for you. Remember that?" He tucked one of his white feathers into his dark half's crown as Samus kept said half's limbs restrained.

"I can't live without you!" Dark Pit barked, gnashing his teeth. "Remember that little detail?"

"Your soul is your own now," Pit said. "Lucario confirmed it."

"I don't care what that mutant fox-thing says!" Then, Dark Pit suddenly took a subdued tone. "Even if my body can live without you, I can't." He looked up. "Without you, I won't have any worthy opponents to fight. You're the only one who can match me."

"Wow, what a confession!" Pit said cheerily and then he went back to being uncharacteristically solemn as he gave Dark Pit's hair a playful rub. "That little spit-curl always bothered me whenever I looked into the mirror. Anyway, Pittoo, can you do something for me?"

"Besides save your damn life?"

"If you get out of this… and you see Lady Palutena again… tell her that I'm sorry, okay? Tell her that I'm really, really sorry and that I never stopped missing her. And, Pittoo? If you don't get out of this? I'll meet you in the City of Souls."

Pit parted from him and went to take his position. Samus squeezed Dark Pit harder as he kicked and struggled. Pit nodded and Link stood well away from him, notching an arrow on his bow. Zelda hugged Red and Toon Link, all of them looking away. Lucario held Ness and Lucas to his chest, allowing them to bury their faces in his fur. Neither Samus nor Dark Pit could look away.

"Lady Palutena," Pit whispered, "I am about to fly."

Link let loose the arrow. It sailed straight and true. The tip buried itself in Pit's forehead. As he fell, Samus let go of Dark Pit. Dark ran to Pit and caught him before he fell into the desert dirt. Everyone else ran to surround the two. For a silent moment, Pit's eyes turned to Dark Pit. A smile crept onto the relaxing muscles of his face. His wings twitched in a spasm and then all was stillness.

Dark Pit roared anguish. "Everyone, GET AWAY!" he screamed. Link stalked off into the wilderness, hitting random bushes and rocks with his sword along the way. Zelda and Toon Link chased after him. Duckie bayed his long, low mourning-howl.

Dark held his brother, rocking on his knees and weeping in bitterness. He muttered words like "idiot" through his sobs, and "I know you were getting better, you dipwad."

"You're such a dweeb, you know that?" he whispered as he closed Pit's open, flat eyes with a shaking hand. The arrow remained in the white angel's skull. Blood ran in miniature red rivers down his face. Red blood – the sign of a living body. It looked a little dark close to the wound. Resting Pit's body on his knees, Dark Pit grasped Link's arrow and struggled to work it loose. When it came free, a gout of black blood burbled up from the stricken brain. Black ichor formed thick, sticky ribbons as the metal arrowhead was pulled free.

"Black blood," Dark Pit whispered. "You really were turning, weren't you? You really did feel it and…" The black-winged angel shivered as he laid his white-winged brother on the ground. He found Pit's Palutena Bow and gently laid it on his chest, wrapping his hands around it. "You're still a dorkwad, though," he said. "Dying doesn't free you from that."

* * *

><p>The group wrapped a bandage around Pit's forehead and made him a simple grave. They could not find a board into which they could burn his world's symbol. Instead, they bound his crown to a stick.<p>

Later that evening, Samus was set to drive and Link walked to the back of the bus, where Dark Pit was seated on the floor stroking Duckie's forehead with one hand and holding his staff against his shoulder with the other. All of the other passengers of Otto were leaving the dark angel alone. He was brooding and his red eyes held the look of someone who wanted to kill something and probably didn't care what.

Link braced himself against one of the back seats. "I do not blame you if you would want to use that staff of yours on me right now," he said.

"I won't," Dark said curtly. "You're our best shot for getting that Triforce-thing of yours, right?"

"I thought you didn't believe in it."

"I have to… now. There's not really any other option, is there?"

"Not that I can see," Link said.

"You did the right thing," Dark Pit said, turning his gaze away.

"Come again?"

"With Pit. Every fiber of my being wants revenge. I'm half a soul now. It would be easy to settle it in Smash with you and to make it fatal, but it wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be what Pit would have wanted, certainly, and…" he choked out the last part, "You were right. And the little dweeboid was right. I took the arrow out of him. His blood was going black. He was terminal… was probably only a day away from becoming un-himself. I've been unmade before. I wouldn't even wish that fate on Hades. Well, maybe Hades, but definitely not Pit."

"We need you to fight," Link said. "We need to get to Hyrule. Any zombies along the way…We need your strength. You've proven yourself to actually be one of our best fighters. Your brother was, too."

Dark Pit was almost growling. "I'll destroy them. I'll kill them all. I will wipe them from the face of the earth with my own hand!"

The radio played softly, not a song from the angels' universe, but it was a funeral song written and sung for another, in another time and place.

"_I'll see you again when the stars fall from the sky and the moon has turned red over One Tree Hill…" _

In the day that followed, the quiet ended. A horde of Goombas, Dry Bones, ReDeads and Stalfos as well as infection-zombies created a blockade on the bus. To the Links' and Zelda's horror, a few of the infected appeared to be Hylians. Did this mean that Hyrule had been taken? Red, to his horror, saw, in undead form, a Pokemon Center nurse he'd recognized. Did this mean that his world had fallen, too?

Dark Pit and Samus wracked up more zombie-kills that day than all of the others combined. Sure, Ness and Lucas clubbed a few Dry Bones skulls to dust with Home Run Bats, but it was the dark angel and the bounty huntress who were fueled the most strongly by fresh grief. It was personal now. Zombies hadn't just destroyed their city, they had murdered their brother. Link had only carried the final arrow.

"A little off the top!" Samus said as she flipped off the top of the bus in her Zero Suit and let a blaster take care of the head of what she thought may have once been Wario. It was hard to tell… he'd smelled as bad alive as dead. He was no one she'd ever gotten to know or like. She munched a Twinkie.

Dark Pit bore down on what looked like to be human soldiers in ancient armor. Had the surface of Angel Land fallen? He knew that Skyworld was supposed to have been cut off. He snipped them expertly with his Dark Pit Staff. If he found any fire ricocheting off the helmets, he aimed for the rubbery living-corpse necks and did re-executions that split the neck bones and sent zombie-heads popping up into the air somewhat comically. He laughed, knowing it was inappropriate, sick and wrong. In fact, that realization made him laugh more.

The two worked with such gusto they not only got the bus through and back on the road again – they worried everyone else. Dark Pit really shouldn't have been laughing so hard at severed heads. Samus probably shouldn't have been so casual about eating snack cakes after wiping spatters of dark blood off her person.

When questioned about it, they held up their white feathers.

* * *

><p>After they were in the clear, Link had taken over driving duties for the next night. He was pretty sure he saw some green grass in the headlights, which meant they'd gotten out of the desert, at least. He hoped it wasn't wherever they were before - the green hill country.<p>

He found out that when they had re-entered the desert, they had been going around in circles. It became obvious when they'd rediscovered Peach and Mario's graves. There was much cursing to be heard on the bus. Red had searched for the road map they'd lifted from the Malo Mart and Link found another route. No wonder this stupid trip had been taking them so long – they were completely lost!

The never-ending road started to become a blur of black asphalt and yellow lines in the misty darkness. Link thought about playing some music, but didn't want to turn it up too loudly for fear of waking the three youngest members of the group (Ness, Lucas and Toon Link had just been able to get to sleep), or their two broken great warriors (Samus and Dark Pit had exhausted themselves and were actually curled up together, asleep, which is something no one had seen happen before).

_You've gotta stay upbeat, upbeat, or you're gonna be deadmeat, deadmeat… _

Link shook his head. He didn't think he'd already turned the radio on.

_Today, I will go soaring through the sky… _

The radio was still off.

Link turned his full attention to the road again. That's when he saw something in the window. It was translucent. It had white wings and white clothing, punctuated by golden and red accents. It had a crown of golden laurel-leaves on its brown hair and it was smiling. The figure was hanging upside-down. Link could see the road through the form even though he knew that he shouldn't be seeing the form at all.

It did not matter that Link had once had experiences with a golden ghost-wolf and an armored skeleton in a mystic plane. When the vision in his window said "Hi, there!" he jammed the brakes, yanked the wheel and sent Otto into a full-circle spin over the empty road.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Congratulations! You now have the Archer Link Trophy! Continue?<strong>_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Music, U2, (and that song existed long before a TV show), Pit's silly songs in "Kid Icarus: Uprising."<strong>_

_**Let me tell you… actually playing a couple of chapters of KIU and binge-watching the animated shorts done for KIU on YouTube for fun and seeing "happy and/or fighting Pit" and coming back to writing this where I had to try to write him with some actual seriousness? It was weird. Imagining his chipper voice set to a Death is the Only Option scenario is just… odd. Hopefully, the "dweeb had his day" and I kept him reasonably in-character. **_

_**While I do not have any Pokemon currently named after any KI characters, I do have a Talonflame named Icarus in my Pokemon Y game. I caught a Fletchling and thought a general-mythic name would be good for my first flying-type capture. Then the fire-powers that I hadn't spoiled myself on ahead of time started happening…It was as if he wanted to live up to his myth. I was amused. **_


	6. Survival of the Fittest

**ROAD TRIP**

Awakened bodies slammed against seats as Otto spun out and came to an uneasy rest. Everyone screamed, or yelped. Samus rolled to the front in ball-form, only to come out of it and grab up Link by the collar of his shirt and hold him a few inches off the floor.

Toon Link squeaked "I'm a fatality!" before realizing that he wasn't.

"What just happened?" Red said, wiping at his bloody nose, which had slammed against the back of a seat in front of him pretty hard.

"Did you fall asleep at the wheel, Fairy Boy?" Samus asked.

"N-n…no…" Link said as she set him down.

She took the driver's seat. "Rest!" she demanded.

"Perhaps we should all rest," Lucario intoned. "I do not sense the fallen ones near."

Duckie seemed unperturbed by the near-crash. He barely looked up with a small "Wuff," before settling back into the spot in which he was sleeping.

Dark Pit hissed and flexed his wings. He snarled as he picked a few broken feathers out of them with small drops of blood at the tips. Breaking feathers like that _hurt_. At least the wings themselves were not broken. "Maybe I ought to learn to drive," he groused. "We can't rely on the dippy Hylian all the time. Samus is wearing herself out."

"I'm fine, Pittoo," she said from her seat.

"Did she just call you…?" Link asked.

"She has earned the privilege," the angel answered. "My other half would want the name carried on – If only because he knew how much it annoyed me."

"Pit!" Link gasped. "He's here! That's why I almost crashed us!"

"Uh, wha?" Lucas asked, rubbing his eyes, "What are you talking about?"

Link looked Lucas and Ness right in the face, leaning in a little too close for comfort. "You… you two are psychic! Don't you see him? He's right next to me!" He turned to the thin air, "Pit, stop tugging on my hat!" He turned back to Lucas and to Ness and gave them a desperate expression. "Do you see him? I know I saw spirits when I was a wolf, but I didn't encounter them too often when in human-form. This is strange…"

"Perhaps you should get some sleep, dear one," Lucario said. "You are obviously starting to dream while awake."

"But…but!" Link insisted, "You don't sense his aura, Lucario? I swear, he's right here!"

"I sense aura from the living," Lucario said. "From ghost-type Pokemon, too, but the situation with humanoids is different. Pit's aura went cold and flickered out when he took the arrow. He was from a different world than mine. I do not know what became of his essence. All we can do is to hold his memory and to acknowledge the pieces of ourselves that he created in us. It is the same with all those we have lost. I do not see him here and I do believe you need your rest. Please take a seat and get some sleep, Link."

"Zelda?" Link asked as he turned to his sleepy princess, who was yawning deeply. "Zelda, do you know what I'm talking about? Do you sense anything?"

"I'm sorry, Link," she said. "Whatever you saw, you probably dreamed it."

"I'm still dreaming it…" he whispered, looking around the bus wild-eyed.

"Then come curl up under a blanket with me," Zelda offered.

"I…I… had a dream about Pit tonight," Lucas said, shivering. "I got woken up when the bus went all wonky. I'm glad. It was a nightmare."

"Tell me, child," Lucario said, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder in the seat they shared. Lucas swung his feet over the edge, rocking his shoes back and forth as Ness started snoring against the Pokemon's side.

"He'd come up out of his grave. He was bleeding from his head and one of his wings was stripped half to bones. He was after us as one of the zombies. Peach and Mario were after us, too. And… there was my brother… and my mom… even though they never came to this world…."

"Easy," Lucario soothed. "You know you don't have to worry about that. The infection is a living virus, it makes people as-dead, but it doesn't bring back those who are already fallen. Our dear Peach is… gone. Mario was never infected. Pit was… Pit was sick, but was very brave. Your family, dear child… it is impossible for them to become the monsters we are fighting. They are… safe." He pointed at Lucas' chest. "And they remain in your heart."

Dark Pit was gritting his teeth and maintaining his staff. Link looked to him. "You," the Hylian whispered, "You… with your connection… you don't see him?"

"No!" Dark Pit answered. "Now stop bothering me!"

Samus righted the bus' path and began to drive. If she was going to be awake – and there needed to be someone on watch - they might as well make progress. Link curled up with Zelda and let him stroke his hair and his ears. It was a little-known fact that stroking a Hylian's ears had a soothing effect on them, at least if someone they'd trusted did it.

"I am not going crazy, am I?" Link asked.

"I don't think so," Zelda said softly. "Maybe you do see some kind of essence. You did when you were a wolf, so maybe you've maintained that."

"I remember Queen Rutella," Link mused. "She wanted to help me. The main thing on her mind was whether or not her son was going to be okay. She could not rest knowing that he was hurt and afraid. Giving him the news of her was possibly the hardest thing I ever had to do until… until a few days ago."

"Sssh, my Hero."

"Maybe he's haunting me because I killed him?"

"He asked you for the mercy."

"Maybe it's because of my guilt. No one else sees him, not even those who should - Not you, not the psychic kids…" Link sighed heavily. "It must mean that I've gone a bit insane. I feel so guilty that my brain is giving he images of him. I killed a friend, Zelda, one of the best ones I had in this world. I… took aim and shot him down, unarmed, just… standing there waiting for it…"

Zelda wrapped her blanket around them both, to keep the rest of the bus from watching her Hero weep. She rubbed his back and held him.

He looked up before succumbing to sleep. He saw Dark Pit, slumped over against one of the walls at the back of the bus. Link was sure he saw the glass-like form of Pit behind him, wrapping his arms around him in an incorporeal hug.

* * *

><p>A stop in the grasslands told the group what un-sealed world they'd limped into. Herds of Tauros grazed the plains. Pidgeys and Fletchlings twittered and flittered about in the trees. Red was very happy. He had his entire team out, hunting and building up their fighting experience. Lucario telepathically spoke to the natives regarding dangers and any signs of sweeping plagues.<p>

Toon Link ran around with a few pokeballs trying to catch his own partner. There didn't seem to be any Honedge around here, however. Everyone else took the chance to wash themselves in a stream they'd found – not as nice as a hot spring, but nothing was crashing the party. Link, however, wanted to be alone.

He found a hill overlooking a meadow and purple, snow-tipped mountains beyond. He sighed and ate a little plate of pie he'd found in one of the holding-bags. He casually reached over and set the plate down right on a small convenient place that had showed up for him…

"Why did you just set your plate on my halo?" Pit demanded. He was sitting beside the Hylian, looking up at an unwanted accessory and Link's rudely-placed plate.

"It was there," Link said. "Besides, it's gotta be useful for something."

"It marks me as finished!" Pit complained as he removed the plate and tugged at the halo, which was immovable. "I don't know why Lady Palutena decided to use this to mark my Game Over when it clashes with my crown!"

Link smiled. "I actually think it's kind of cute."

"I'd rather be alive. I can't really kick demon and zombie-butt this way, and Thanatos keeps laughing at me. I don't think you can hear him."

"I don't. Then again, I seem to be the only one who can see you. What gives?"

"Shut up! Pink is manly! I'm not even wearing it right now!" Pit shook his head, "Oh, sorry." Then he grit his teeth and shook a fist into nothingness. "It was one of my costumes! Lady Palutena liked it! Go turn into a cat or something!"

"Thanny-poo?"

"Thanny-poo. Anyway, you can see me because Lady Palutena wanted me to come to you, to be your guide. Something like that."

"Why?"

"Well, you're a Link. All Links are required by Nintendo mandate to be paired up with a chatty companion when undertaking any great quest!"

"Uh…"

"Okay, so a few of you have gone solo, but most of you need a partner, and, well, hello, here I am!"

"Why you, then?" Link inquired with a glare. "I've already went through a quest with Midna and I have a fairy."

"That fairy was just an arena-hologram. It wasn't your ancestor's Navi."

"Thank the gods. But… you?"

Pit twitched his spectral wings. "I think I'm here because you feel guilty. You need me the most right now, so I'm here to cheer you up… with song!"

Link pulled his hat over his sensitive ears when Pit started singing "The Upbeat Song." The boy's twin was right. That thing was annoying.

"Do you know anything else?" Link grumbled.

"Let's see…" The spectral angel pulled a spectral violin out of his spectral robe when it really shouldn't have been there. He pulled out a bow and started playing a beautiful rendition of the Ballad of the Goddess from Hyrule's tradition, complete with singing. Link's eyes were wide. It was actually very nice.

Pit bowed. "Thank you, thank you. I'll be here until Lady Palutena recalls me or Hades regenerates enough to catch me."

"Oh, my, Pit… he'll be after you in this state?"

"If he regenerates himself enough, eventually… well… yeah. He's the Lord of the Dead. Technically, I'm supposed to be his now. If Hades finds my soul, well… he'll probably slap me between two pieces of bread with lettuce and tomato and chew – slowly."

"Oh, by Farore, Pit…"

"The safest place for me to be right now is probably in the City of Souls. If I can get there before any of the gods of death can get their payback on me, I stand a good chance of being reincarnated. I think I'd like to be a soldier, or a kitty. Or an eagle! Or… one of those huge birds that one of your ancestors rode! Or maybe… maybe even one of the players beyond the Fourth Wall! That would be awesome!"

"Focus, Pit."

"Yeah, yeah, right." The angel's spirit stood up. "I'm not there because what I really want is to be alive again – as me. Hanging out with you is only chance I've got of that. You're the leader here and you have the best shot of getting everyone safe and getting to the Triforce. You do plan to wish everyone back, right? You aren't just going to wish for riches or to become a god or something?"

"Pah!" Link answered. "You know the answer to that! I want everyone back and the world restored. Besides, on one of the websites beyond the Fourth Wall that the readers might be familiar with, I'm already a god – the God of Diversified Weaponry, I believe. You're on the pantheon, too."

"What as?"

"The God of Flightless Angels."

Pit made a face and stuck out his tongue. "That's kinda…mean."

"I think a group called the Haibane follow you, though, or they should."

Link paused for a moment before standing up and dusting off his britches. "I still don't know if you're real or if you're just something going funny in my brain. Zelda doesn't see you… she sees things like this in Hyrule. She's very sensitive to the spiritual world. Ness and Lucas… they have psychic powers – but I guess this is one of those things like 'psychics playing the lottery' that shows they have limits and specific skills. Toony doesn't see you, and he's like me – he encountered spirits on his quest and still can't see you. And your brother, Pit…"

"Lady Palutena said I was for you. I suppose that means that I'm really only supposed to be seen by you. I'm your companion, like I said. Think of me as hiding in your shadow, like Midna! Or under your hat, like Navi did for your granddaddy!"

Link looked around and started undoing something on his pants beneath his tunic.

"And I'll always be with you, even when you've gotta go to the baaaaathroom!" Pit teased.

Link winched. "Pit! Look AWAY, please!"

"Of course, of course! I was just messin' with ya. The look on your face is priceless!"

"Pit, NOW!"

After pants were hitched closed, Link sighed and started to snort-laugh.

"What?"

"Just remembering something," the swordsman said. "You know how my partner, Midna, was always in my shadow until she needed to come out?"

"Yeah...?"

"I once accidentally peed on her. The next time I had to become a wolf, she slammed down on my back extra hard."

"Must have hurt."

"I'm… I really must be going crazy. I'm talking to the ghost of a zombie angel and I'm confiding secrets that people would kill me for if they knew…"

"Come on, Link. Does it matter if I'm real if I help you get to where you need to go? Just over those hills there is someone who is waiting for us."

"A survivor?"

"Yes."

"We should go, then. You know, Pit, if you can, you really ought to try to make an appearance to Dark."

"I'm afraid that might hurt him. He's trying to find closure in his own way."

"He's becoming unhinged. Honestly, we're all starting to fear him as well as for him."

"Oh, that's just the way he is – super-aggro. Besides, you probably need him this way. I've been watching him fight."

"Do consider it. He misses you more than you'd think."

* * *

><p>Over hill and dale along the empty highway was a bus stop. Sitting on the bench of the bus stop in the shade was an unmistakable figure that set the entirety of Otto rejoicing, except for Dark Pit, who just kept to himself and kept cold.<p>

The young woman smiled when she boarded the bus. She spoke of great relief upon seeing fellow survivors. She said that she was just at the bus stop using the bench as a prop to stretch her hamstrings a little. Mrs. Whiffet never spoke much outside of the fitness classes she ran in the Smash Mansion with her husband. Even her calls in battle were reminders to everyone to keep toned and healthy. No one knew her given name, so everyone called her Mrs. Whiffet or just "W."

W and her husband had been signed on, at first, just to run the fitness room and to be personal trainers to all of the fighters, until the Hands deemed that they should enter the tournament, themselves. They had done so for fun, rather than glory. They were still mostly on-assignment to keep everyone in top physical condition. In fact, no one knew if they were humans from some universe where people had shiny, porcelain skin or if they were some kind of artificial life forms. All they knew was that W was a kind and attentive personal trainer and everyone was glad to see their dear coach alive and well.

"How did you get way out here?" Link asked.

W sat down on the edge of a seat and took some water. "Lots of running," she said, bashfully. Mr. Whiffet and Mac… they didn't make it. They were taken, strong muscles torn and eaten…The fittest of us don't always survive…"

Ness offered her a hug, which she took with a small smile. "At least they weren't turned. They were taken too quickly. They fought well, though…Fought well, and went quickly. Do not worry about me. Sweat and running have sapped my tears. I must survive for them."

She curiously fingered the little white feather Ness had affixed to his cap. "What is this?" She then noticed how everyone seemed to be wearing a feather affixed to their persons in some way – pinned in Lucas' shirt, in Lucario's chest-fur, upon the collar of Zelda's dress, around a cord hung on the neck of Samus' armor, in the Links' tunic-collars, in Red's hat, even upon the black scarf of the dark angel who had plenty of feathers of his own. Even the dog had one in his collar.

"We have lost people, too," Zelda said.

The Fellowship of the Feathers told her their story thus far. "Mario was one of my best students," W confessed. "He didn't have a flexible body-type, but he tried. He really wanted to lose weight."

She smiled ruefully. "Peach… I told her not to hit the cake so much. It was starting to show. Sweet lady…"

When they got to speaking of Pit, she was just about floored. In fact, she wound up hugging a very unwilling Dark Pit, who slammed a Guardian Orbitar into her to get rid of her. "That was," she said to Link from the floor as Dark groused away, "That was the bravest story I've heard in a long time. Poor kid."

"That's why we wear the feathers," Toon Link explained. "With him, we had something to take to remember." The young warrior rummaged around until he'd found a stray white feather lingering in one of the bags of holding (of course, one of the ones that held the food). It wasn't as long as the flight-feathers everyone else was wearing, but it was large enough, a mid-wing feather. He held it up to W.

"Here," he said, "For you to remember your people and to help us fight."

W took the little feather gratefully. She pinned the badge of honor to the strap of her tank top. "So… is there a destination to this magic bus?" she asked.

"Hyrule," the elder Link said. "It's the last free land and it has an item that may, if my gods grant it, erase this nightmare and make everything right."

Before the bus could get on the road again, a nightmare screech sounded, shaking its tires and carriage and blackening the sky.

Red peered out the windows and went white.

"What is it?" Lucas asked, taking his hand.

"Oh no… This isn't well…."

"Is it a Pokemon?" Toon Link asked. He saw all the Tauros in the fields behind stampeding down into the valleys, desperately trying to get away from something, probably the great red and black thing that had appeared just over the horizon.

"It's a Pokemon-god," Red choked. "Not just any one, either. I think bad things are coming this way. Samus, Link, somebody, FLOOR IT!"

"Just what has gotten you so frightened?" Zelda asked. Then, she saw it.

"It is the Great Wings," Red said with reverence and fear. "That is Yveletal. In this world, he is the God of Death."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Congratulations! You've got the Wii Fit Trainer Sitting at a Bus Stop Trophy! Continue?<strong>_

* * *

><p><em><strong>If I get a little slow on my pace of getting these chapters out… um… I got the newest game it's all based on as an unexpected gift. It's both giving me inspiration to write… and making me want to play games and not write. So, you win some, you lose some. I hope to have this thing done by Halloween, since this is a Halloween present to the fandom. <strong>_

_**There are a few things here that seem to be running-gags in my fanfiction. I included the "ghost Pit has a halo he cannot remove" thing specifically for 23Blenders, because she wanted to see it. That was something I originally had in "A Gathering of Sacrifices" of the "National Anthem" fic-'verse. In turn, it was inspired by a piece of art I'd seen on Deviant Art regarding Pit's game over in "Of Myths and Monsters." (BTW, does anyone know how to beat that first-dungeon minotaur? I cannot get past him)! And just so you don't think I'm too original in that scene where Link sets a plate on Pit's halo – I get that from the anime, "Haibane Renmei" which is a hauntingly beautiful series where, like Pit, the main characters are given wings but cannot fly. **_

_**Toon Link's line at the beginning… blame ArkNorth for that. He wanted someone on my bus o' doom to have a Ralph Wiggum line. It's what I get for naming the bus after the school bus driver in "The Simpsons." **_

_**So, they're starting to find survivors. Yes. **_


	7. Like Caged Birds

**ROAD TRIP**

A pair of well-worn shoes beat the dust in a steady rhythm. Their owner had a rider on his back, one that he was carrying because the rider could not move as swiftly on his own. They both had been fleeing the Dark Lord's Army. At first, the infection had just created indiscriminate swarms of predators. However, one of the beings invited to the tournament who thrived on chaos, once freed to do so again, took up the opportunity to bend the suggestible remains of the infected ones to his will.

The doctor did not know what was stranger – having survived the epidemic, having brought his friend and mount, Yoshi, back from the infection setting in after he was bitten, or the fact that Ganondorf, completely healthy – had made an army of minions out of much of Smash City. Not all of the zombies followed Hyrule's King of Evil, most of them were just mindless hungry beings, bodies without souls, but Ganondorf had quite a talent for wielding the power and loyalty of monsters. Dr. Mario did not know what was more dangerous – the indiscriminate swarms or something that was vaguely organized. Ganon, he supposed, would be the tyrant-king and wicked god of this world if he could not yet take over his own. The Undead Army was marching toward Hyrule. One of the strangest things that kept them from reaching the area in a timely manner was swaths of other zombies – ones without loyalties. There was no cannibalism among zombies, but they could fight over space and prey, however sluggishly. Of course, Ganondorf's army also had the standard sets of monsters in it – magical undead from Hyrule, dry bone turtles from the Mushroom Kingdom and the like

Doctor Mario pulled Yoshi to a slow-pace upon seeing something in the distance. "Best to approach cautiously," he said, patting the dinosaur's neck. Yoshi made a little yelp of agreement in the rather chipper language of his kind. The good doctor was headed toward Hyrule, himself – not just for the sake of warning anyone there of what was coming, but because his survival out in the wilderness told him that there were survivors among the Smashers headed in the same direction.

Sadly enough, it was a trail of death that evidenced life. He knew that anyone making a break for it the night the Mansion fell would have a long road headed toward any safe-zone. Fatalities along the way – from zombie attacks or otherwise were a distinct possibility. He and Yoshi had met with a pair of fresh-looking graves earlier, ones with distinct symbols upon them – the symbols of worlds they knew. Only a caring group of survivors would bother to make graves.

Upon reading the names, the doctor relayed them to Yoshi and both mourned deeply. The doc was of a splinter-universe, one where he was Mario Mario, but had pursued a career in medicine. His "other self" had started out as a plumber before becoming something of a professional hero. Despite being alternate versions of a same-self, they had become brothers here in this world. It seemed to be a common theme with fighters the Hands had plucked from different universes and timelines, or those split-off twins born of the magic or the technology of their own worlds. Doctor Mario had to face, definitely, losing his brother. Oh! And Peach! Dear, sweet Peach! He couldn't help wondering how it had happened, either – fights with zombies? Wild beasts or Pokemon? Accident? Food poisoning? Dysentery?

He tried not to think of things that were too late to cure. As Yoshi pulled up to the thing Doctor Mario had seen by the roadside that interested him presently, he knew that they must be going in the correct direction. It was obviously another grave. It was a simpler one – no placard with a name or a symbol, just a simple stick to which was tied a light crown.

"Oh, dear, Mama Mia," the doctor said, making a sign over his chest. "Whoever we're following… they lost one of the angels. Dear, me."

He wondered whether it was the one with the white wings or the black wings. The raven-winged once seemed too stubborn to die of anything. The swan-winged one was one of the sweetest-natured Smash tournament fighters he'd ever met. Either way, it was a terrible loss. Doctor Mario didn't want to come across any more graves. He hoped that he'd find some other, kinder signs of life.

He asked Yoshi to take a steady trot. He plugged some ear-buds into his ears and fired up a small music player that, surprisingly, still had some battery life. He'd pinched some batteries for it from the Malo Mart he'd passed.

_I think I'm a clone now, a clone now-ow… I can stay at home while I'm outta town… _

Yeah, that was a kind of song for him, wasn't it? At least, that's what the crowds had thought back during tournaments past. Now, he was the only Mario here. In any case, this artist was a humorist and parody songs were just what he needed to lighten his mood.

"Farewell, poor angel," he said as Yoshi trotted off down the road, carrying him.

* * *

><p>The Great Wings blotted the sun from the sky like a sudden storm.<p>

"God of Death?" Toon Link asked.

"Uh-huh," Red stammered. "Legend has it, in ancient times; the Kalos Region of my world was at war. The war raged so fiercely that it awakened the Pokemon we are seeing now. It ended the war."

"Isn't an end to war a good thing?" Ness asked.

"Not when something ends a war by killing absolutely everything in its path with a wave of mortality!" Red said. "Yveltal must have been awakened by the zombie infection taking so many people. It feeds on the energy of death."

"Well, you're a Pokemon Trainer!" Toon Link yelped. "Why don't you go… try to capture it or something?"

"I could try…" Red offered, "But I do not think I am ready. That thing's a Legendary. Even if I treat Lucario as being on my team it's…. I've heard that it can be tamed by the right trainer, but that the price of loyalty is an early grave…"

Lucario, for his part, looked genuinely afraid as he looked out the windows of Otto. "I… I do have a slight type advantage… a Fighting to its Dark, but I also have a disadvantage, as it is also a Flying-type. And…I fear it will take my soul."

"Look," Dark Pit pointed out, "We aren't dead yet, are we?"

"He is right," Zelda said. "Perhaps it is just passing through."

That is when the herd of Pokemon which just weren't right came storming over the hills. Samus gunned the bus, only to hit a half-skeletal Sawsbuck. His fall colors scattered. They came upon the group quickly. Before Samus could gun the bus again, they found it held in place by a Machamp with rotting muscles.

"Is that?" Lucas asked, pointing… "Oh, no…"

A familiar-looking creature lead the group. They could only tell that it was truly their fellow fighter by the rainbow-flame colored ball dangling from a collar it wore, marking it as a Smasher. The front part of its face had rotted off, showing its prodigious rodent-teeth.

"Pikachu…" Ness groaned.

The oversized mouse, even in zombie-form, wielded sparks and lightning. Another familiar face was seen among the vanguard. Apparently, some of the Pok'Mon Professors had tried to get to the bottom of the infection. Greninja jumped and swaggered, his chest and belly opened up with pins like a frog in a high school biology class.

Red jumped out of the back of the bus and deployed two of his team. "Ivysaur! Vine Whip! Charizard! Flamethrower!" he commanded. The two healthy Pokemon did as commanded. He stood on the road and directed them. Squirtle was kept in his ball because he was young and Red thought this kind of situation was too risky for the little guy.

Link directed everyone else. "Ness! Lucas!" he shouted, "bring out your big powers! Lucario, you're a Pokemon – you know what to do! Toony, climb up on the roof and start lobbing some bombs! Use your bow if you think you can get headshots! Samus, canon! Dark Pit, do some sniping, you know you want to! W, give them all a good workout! Zelda, the Din's Fire is your best spell in this, even better than you being Sheik, so stay yourself! Duckie…"

The spirit of Pit stood behind the Hylian. "Keep Duckie away form the skinned dogs," he said ominously.

Right then, out of the advancing horde of various kinds of zombified Pokemon, two Houndoom came running for the area around the bus and the defenders. The creatures appeared to be stripped of their skins, their bloody muscles glistening in the low-filtered sunlight. Duckie jumped up and ran to engage them. Link dove and grabbed him by the collar. Lucario stepped in between them and kicked one in the jaw, causing it to topple into the other.

"Look!" Pit yelped to Link, "Watch out!" Link heeded him as some smaller creatures came his way. "Hey, Listen!"

Link growled at the ghost of the dead angel. "What are you doing?" he groused.

"Being a good guide!" Pit offered. "Really, do watch out, Link. You are the only one who can listen to me."

W kicked a zombiefied Tauros right in the gem in the center of its forehead. With a bellow, it toppled, the gem cracked.

"Charizard!" Red screamed a flock of Manidbuzz and diseased Pigeotto tore the great lizard from the sky. He ran headlong to the place where his beast fell. W ran after him, trying to catch him.

Toon Link slammed a bomb into something that looked like a bear and melted a few undead icebergs.

Dark Pit had flown off to parts unknown. The psi-kids were lobbing something they called "Love" and "Rockin" into the crowds.

All the while, the bus' radio equipment was playing one of the random soundtrack discs that the group had found – not one of their arena tracks, but something from a television program about a last remnant of people fighting against gruesome, hungry monsters. Somehow, it felt appropriate to have _Guren no Yumiya_ playing during this fight and not just because it was the kind of song that could be set to almost anything and everything and make it cool. As he was setting a sword to an undead Arcanine, Link realized what he was listening to. He'd loved that show when the theater at the Smash Mansion had aired it. It gave him new and exciting ideas regarding the use of his Clawshots. The brothers Pit, of course, had loved the _Wings of Freedom. _

Link raised a small smile for the ghost only he knew was there. Yes, for his memory and for the defense of all their living friends, Link would be the fiercest holy hunter today. The Fellowship of the Feathers was holding its own. Dismembered zombies littered the roadside and the area around it and there appeared to be not a single casualty today among their own.

That is, until a roar and a puff of nasal-fire brought Charizard up from the zombie-army. His eyes were flat and he looked distinctly off in that way that the fresh infected did. That was not the most horrible part. The most terrible aspect of his rocketing into the sky for all to see was the fact that he carried Red in his mouth.

A screaming, terrified Red.

"H-Help!" the boy shouted as he kicked and desperately tried to pry his Pokemon's jaw loose. Everyone shouted and immediately looked skyward. Even the spiritual remains of Pit squeaked although only Link heard him.

Red looked desperately to Link, who deployed one of his Clawshots. Direct hit! The claws pierced Charizard in his long neck, sending up a spatter of black blood. _How was his blood black already? Did infection in Pokemon take that swiftly? _

Link swung up and around, arcing his body in a manner similar in that gory animated series the songs on the radio were from. The characters in that had fought giants by setting swords to a weak point on their enemies. Link figured he could slice Charizard's head clean off and save Red.

"Link!" the boy shouted, unsure whether he was relieved to see an experienced dragon slayer come to his rescue or fearful for what he was going to do to his first and best Pokemon-friend.

That is when Charizard bit down hard. Red stopped shouting, going immediately limp in the creature's jaws. It flinched and flung the boy out onto the field, where he tumbled sideways before coming to a rest on the trampled and torn grass. Link was jerked sharply, but managed to direct his flight. He landed atop Charizard's neck and, with one swift, terrible motion, drove the Master Sword right through the center of its head. The Pokemon fell heavily. Link disengaged his Clawshot and jumped off the dragon as it landed with a big, meaty thump.

At that moment, Ness and Lucas had called up their old Smash Ball attacks somehow. Perhaps they had each found one floating in the air? Meteors of light streaked down from the sky, slamming into what remained of the horde of hungry beasts. The shadow of Yveltal passed. The sun shone again and healthy Fletchlings and Pidgeys started coming down into the branches of the trees surrounding the field everyone was in to tweet and chirp. It was like rays of sun and a rainbow after a storm.

The aftermath of this storm, however, was cruel. _Vogel im Kafig_ – a song from the group's current soundtrack - one of the sadder songs of it - played upon Otto's radio. Broken Pokemon littered the field in scruffs of fur and skin and skull, upon grass painted black. Ashes from where certain weapons and attacks had incinerated the enemies also coated the ground. Of course, Charizard lay still. Link took a quick accounting of everyone as Toon Link climbed down from the bus roof and joined him in trotting over to where they'd seen Red thrown.

"Where in Hades, Subspace and everywhere else is Dark?" Link growled.

"I'll hunt for him," Samus said, nodding her helmet and running off, her canon and rocket-launcher ready for danger.

Before he crested the hill, a smell hit Link's nose. The acrid stench of zombie-blood and ashes was bad enough. He was hit with a familiar scent, one that he wished he could forget. By the wrinkling of Toon Link's nose, he'd smelled it to, and probably was just as familiar with it. A memory flashed in Link's mind of witnessing a bulbin thrust a short sword into a merchant's cart-horse – cutting it open along the belly. Link remembered the same smell coming from his own body when he'd been given a heavy wound from a Darknut's sword. Midna had sealed him up with a shadow just long enough for them to warp to Kakariko Village and for him to stagger to the door of the shaman's house for help.

Guts just had a unique, gummy sort of smell. It was like a dirty bathroom, a butcher shop and an otherwise indescribable gumminess all rolled into one.

When Link found Red, he didn't want to look at him. Duckie howled in the distance. Link forced himself to look. It wasn't as bad as he'd thought it was going to be, really. Nothing was spilled, but there were deep puncture wounds. Red had closed his own eyes, so the Links were spared a dead-eyed gaze.

Link took the blood-speckled feather from Red's hat and tucked it next to the one already pinned to his tunic. This was a second reminder for all they were fighting for. Link sighed deeply as he methodically straightened out Red's jacket. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you. You were counting on me and I didn't get to you in time."

He broke down crying into his hands. Toon Link rubbed his back. He felt like breaking down into a puddle of salt water himself, but felt the sudden need to be strong for his elder. He'd cry later. Red was a best friend.

"Look, Link," the ghost of Pit said to the elder Hylian's ear.

"NOT THE TIME!" Link growled. Toon Link looked at him strangely and backed off, thinking that he was being addressed.

Toony went to see how Zelda, Ness and Lucas were doing, trying not to think about how a good friend of his had just been bitten through, nearly halved. He started crying, snarling and cutting the grass along the way. He shared his counterpart's temper. Unfortunately for the both of them, there were no clay pots to break out here, no sound of shattering clay to soothe their nerves.

"Look up, Link, please," Pit pleaded. "It will make you feel better, I promise."

Link cautiously looked up. He saw, across the field, near the treeline, a strange, bouncing pumpkin.

"What am I looking at?" he asked.

"Look harder," Pit said.

"Well, it's some kind of Pokemon, isn't it? I see a face on it."

"It's a Pumpkaboo," Pit explained. "They're kind of like Reapers in my world, but they're much nicer. They escort the souls of the dead."

Link blinked. "Wait, is that… is that Red?" He saw the transparent, blue-tinged image of a boy with Red's face wearing Red's clothing, smiling and waving at him. It stood next to the little pumpkin-creature.

"Uh-huh," Pit said. "You don't have to worry about him. He's moving on. He forgives you. Also, Link? Look at his belt… on the…the b-body, I mean. You really ought to release the new captures he's got there, or at least the one in the ball named Mr. Pac-Man."

"Huh?" Link questioned. The Red-ghost's face looked pleading, so he obeyed his "guardian angel."

"He made some captures along this trip. That one was a lucky find, but should be freed without a trainer."

Link released "Mr. Pac-Man." A small Ghastly emerged. Link looked up to it and said "You're free."

The ball-like ghost floated off to where the Pumpkaboo and its charge were waiting. Link took more balls off Red's belt, choking as he read the names of each one.

A mushroom-like creature named "Mario" was released, as was a fairy-like being hugging a flower named "Peach." Link came to the last one and decided to withdraw it back into the ball and to pocket it.

"You aren't freeing the one named after me?" Pit asked.

"If what Red told me is correct, a Fletchling can be trained into a mighty flaming falcon. I have experience in falconry. Everyone in my village of Ordon does it."

"Very well then, but treat him right, okay?"

"Of course," Link said, sighing bitterly. "He represents two good friends."

He waved gently to the spirit of Red as it wandered off toward the trees, guided by the Pumpkaboo and flanked by the Ghastly.

"What's going to happen to him?" Link asked.

"I do not know," was Pit's answer.

Repairs were to be made, as were memorials. Otto needed some maintenance and the use of one of the fuel-cans. Wounded bodies and hearts were to be attended to (hopefully no one had been infected).

And the missing needed to be accounted for. Ivysaur had disappeared, as did Dark Pit.

Even burials would wait for them.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Congratulations! You've got the Clawshot Link Trophy! Continue?<strong>_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Music: Weird Al Yankovick and the Attack on Titan soundtrack <strong>_

_**Yes, I was listening to Attack on Titan music while writing this and it did affect the story. Deal. And, no, I've never played any of the Resident Evil games, but I remember seeing commercials for the movie and seeing skinned dogs in it that I thought were cool – hence the two Houndoom. **_


	8. Running on Empty

**ROAD TRIP**

"Squirtle! Squirtle? Squritle?"

Red's Squirtle was running around the impromptu "camp" looking for his master. He'd popped out of his pokeball and did not understand where his master had gone. The tiny turtle seemed to be unable to connect the body beneath the blanket resting at the side of the road with Red.

"Little one…" Lucario said softly as he sat on the lip of the back of the bus, one of his legs being tended to by W. "Child, please come here. He cannot command you anymore."

W rubbed the jackal-Pokemon's right foot. "It looks a little strained. Possibly a hairline fracture in the toe. If we have any red potion left, it should fix it right up. If not, stay off it. Well, if you can. You should have stretched before battle."

"I usually do," Lucario replied. "It is difficult to do things properly when taken by surprise."

Lucas was inconsolable. Ness hugged him. Lucas and Red had helped each other survive during the Subspace debacle.

Toon Link was cutting grass and slicing the bark off trees, not able to handle things with a response other than anger. He hit a few of the zombie-remains on the field a few times, as if re-killing them had not been enough.

Zelda busied herself with the remains of Greninja, re-killed courtesy a quick headshot by Toon Link with an arrow. _Not unlike poor Pit's sacrifice_, she noted. Greninja had been pulled to the roadside as well as what remained of Pikachu. She closed up his dissection-cuts and sewed them up, wondering just what had happened to the poor creature. On the practice stages for Smash, she had gotten along very well with the frog-Pokemon, sparring with him frequently as Sheik. There had been similarities to the general feel of their fighting and they had given each other mutual honor. She was extra-careful, donning special gloves, for she knew that the infection traveled via bodily fluids – although the most common method for contracting it was a bite.

Link sat cross-legged on the top of the bus, staring out into space. He kept staring off into a specific part of the field. When Samus returned and said "Yo! Link!" he barely flinched.

"Yeah?" he asked, staring off, almost catatonic.

"Found 'im."

"Who?"

"Found them both, actually. Ivysaur is… remains. Pittoo's alright, in a manner of speaking."

"In a manner of speaking?" Link turned around and slid off the bus. Everyone stared as Dark Pit casually wandered back into the camp. He was holding something in his left hand, his magical sniper-staff stowed away and a black-bloody silver-blade from his bow in his right fist.

"Didn't know there were humans among the horde," Link said dully. He'd seen enough death today that his tone came out in apathy.

Dark looked down at his prize – the zombie-head of a green-haired woman – as if he'd forgotten he was carrying it. He tossed it away without ceremony. "There was a group of former police and trainers just beyond the trees," he said dully. "Is everyone else alright?"

"No," Link answered. He pointed to the tennis shoes of the blanket-draped figure and nodded to the large form of Charizard out in the field.

"Shame," Dark Pit said simply. He did not get outwardly emotional, but his eyes were lit with anger.

A figure came up behind the black-winged angel. Everyone around the bus tensed, ready for a threat. A doglike creature padded up casually, as if it had been following behind Dark Pit all this time without his notice. Duckie immediately ran out from under the bus, barking. He circled the newcomer and started sniffing its hindquarters. The white creature returned the gesture.

Lucario held up a hand and limped toward it. Dark Pit looked at this spectacle, puzzled.

"Don't harm her, she's healthy," Lucario said.

"What the heck is it?" Dark Pit asked, "And was it following me? Why was it following me?"

Lucario bent down and took the animal's face in his forepaws. "It is a Pokemon," he said. "This is an Absol."

The Absol barked.

"Her name is Abby, or it was when she had a master. "She followed you because you reminded of her master."

"I ain't no Pokemon Trainer!" Dark Pit yelped defensively.

Abby sniffed him and then stepped back, curling up a paw. "Absol?"

"The Absol is a Dark-type," Lucario explained. "This means that they use attacks mostly based upon intimidation, fear and dirty tricks. They are pragmatic fighters. Absols, particularly, are far from wicked, though. They herald disaster – they try to warn people and other Pokemon when deadly things are coming. It seems that this poor little one was just a little too late, or, perhaps, went unheeded."

Dark bent down and cautiously petted Abby. "She's got red eyes, like me." He took his hand back when she barked loudly at him.

"Don't touch the scythe," Lucario warned. "It's sharp. She just protected you."

"She's got a little thing on a chain around her neck," Dark Pit said, holding it up. He assumed it was a name-tag, but found no name.

"That's a Dread Plate," Lucario said. "It enhances her special attacks. It means that she was definitely trained."

"Where's her trainer now?" Ness asked.

"Probably a victim," Lucario sighed.

"Where's your trainer now?" Dark Pit whispered. He said the line tenderly, unlike when he used to taunt Pit in battle with "Where's your goddess now?" Abby responded by licking the tip of his nose.

"Alright," he said. "You're one of us now." He gave her a stroke on the back. "I could… use a new friend, I guess. I have been… ugh… a bit lonely."

"If we can find a certain mineral," Lucario began, "it may trigger a reaction in her that brings out the Absol's ultimate form."

"Ultimate form?"

"It's called the 'Guardian Angel.' The hair tufts out on their shoulders and looks like wings and they are extra pumped for the fight. It's the kind of thing that can only happen in a Pokemon battle."

"White wings?"

"White wings."

The rest of the day was long, hard and sweaty. Trenches were dug, former comrades were laid to rest with whatever prayers and rituals the individual survivors wished to perform, and scattered remains of those less personal to them were buried or incinerated with whatever means they had on-hand. Charizard, too large to handle, was left in the field. Not being living, he could not be withdrawn to his pokeball.

The Fellowship of the Feathers packed up and got Otto rolling. As Dark Pit stepped into the bus from the front doors, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in one of the bus' side-mirrors. He saw a smiling figure with brown hair, deep blue eyes, white wings and a white chiton. He blinked and merely saw himself, as dark and blood-eyed as ever.

Despite what he'd been through earlier, Link took the drivers' seat. Again, he liked having something to focus on. Duckie curled up with Samus while Dark Pit curled up with Abby. She smelled nice, like dragon's blood incense. As he nodded off, exhausted from the day's events, he could have sworn he heard a familiar voice telling him "I'm not a dorkwad!"

When he snorted awake, the three children were carrying on about something they'd seen out the right-side windows. Link was half-sitting up; Samus remained cool and W was busy doing some kind of meditation. Lucario's interest was held, but he was also tending to his sore foot. Zelda was looking, but said nothing.

"Is that the Halberd?" Ness cried.

"Yeah! It's the Halberd!" Toon Link chimed in.

"There must be other survivors!" Link gasped, remembering, then, to keep his hands on the wheel. "I wonder who? Meta Knight is probably there, because he knows how to drive the ship… And… yeah I think we might be coming up on Hyrule!"

"It will be a while before we catch up to them, if we don't want to use up our fuel," Toon Link said. "Too bad this bus isn't like the Spirit Train. If we could only retro-fit the thing to run on spirit energy, we'd be set!"

"We're almost in the clear!" Lucas reminded him. "We might see Meta Knight again… and Kirby, and… Marth might be there! And… everyone else!"

Those that were a little too relaxed suddenly shot to attention. Everyone aboard Otto cheered. Even Duckie and Abby barked.

* * *

><p>Graves decorated with spent pokeballs told Doctor Mario that he was going the right way. Seeing skids of fresh rubber on the road, he took Yoshi on a shortcut. That is how they wound up chasing down Otto.<p>

It was W that sighted them.

"Hey… aren't those characters people we know?" she said, striking a standing pose on one leg in the middle of the aisle, pointing with one toe out one of the windows. She had to do everything physically fancy.

"Stop the bus!" Ness yelled as he and Lucas opened up the back to let Yoshi vault in.

"Hey, Doc!" Samus greeted. "And Yoshi! You're alive!"

The kids closed the back.

"Absol?" Abby questioned.

Duckie practically jumped on Yoshi as soon as Doctor Mario dismounted.

Toon Link let Yoshi nuzzle his chest. "How did you get out?" he asked.

"Oh, Doc, were' so glad to see you both!" Link said. He pet Yoshi on the head. "How ya doin' buddy?"

"Good, very good," the dinosaur answered simply. He seemed to struggle, though the sounds he made were as cute as they always had been.

"He has some trouble with speech," Doctor Mario interjected. "He was wounded in the throat. Bit."

"Bit?" everyone yelped at once.

The good doctor held up his hands and put himself in front of the green therapod when he thought he saw Samus reaching for a hand-blaster. "He's NOT infected!" he insisted. "I was able to treat him, to draw the infection out of him before it set!" He pulled something from a coat pocket. "This herb was instrumental. I was not able to find much of it growing wild in the badlands, but it has amazing curative properties."

Zelda took the dried plants from the doctor's hand and scrutinized them. "I don't believe this," she gasped. "This is Gerudo Sagebrush! This is something from Hyrule and quite rare."

"Combined with the standard stage-healing items and potions, and lots of fluids, this does seem a deciding factor in helping the body's immune system fight off the effects of the zombie agent. It is not full-proof and any chance of saving someone means it has to be caught early. I have gathered as much of it as I could, but as you said, Lady Zelda, it is quite rare. It was something I was experimenting with when the Mansion fell."

"It is something we could have used… and we could have used you," Link said, sitting down on the edge of a bus seat and putting a hand on Doctor Mario's shoulder. "If you'd been with us when we got out and found this bus, we would have more Smashers with us."

Doctor Mario looked down. "I came across the graves. They were how I found you. Once I saw them, I knew I was going in the right direction. Did they all succumb to the same illness?"

Link solemnly shook his head. "No. Peach did. We were attacked. She was wounded and we tried to save her, but she turned. Samus took care of matters. Mario… Peach killed him outright, when she was not herself. Pit…"

The Hylian struggled. "I put down Pit, by his request. He was infected and felt himself slipping. He had the presence of mind and the courage to do that. He found that he couldn't quite do it himself, but I can't resent him for putting the burden on me. He actually, physically couldn't do it himself."

Dark Pit had his back turned to everyone, hiding his face. He hugged Abby close, gripping hard into her fur. Out of the corner of his eye, Link could see the specter of Pit hugging his brother from behind again.

Link licked his lips and continued on. "Yesterday was a nightmare. We met up with some of our Pokemon-fighters, already gone. We lost Red when his Charizard was bitten and it tried to devour him. It was the darndest thing. Pit resisted the infection for a long time before it got bad enough that I fulfilled his request. We figured he took so long to show signs of it because he was a physical angel, technically immortal. Peach was a mere mortal and resisted it for a couple of days. Charizard took like that. All of a few minutes."

"Um, hm…" Doctor Mario grunted thoughtfully, putting a hand to his chin. "From my observations… from afar, I assure you, and from studying some black blood samples I have taken (given my limited equipment and the rigors of the setting), it appears to me that the infection has been growing more aggressive over time, more quick-acting. I do wonder if it has anything to do with the Dark Lord's influence…"

"Dark Lord?" The Links, Zelda, Samus and Lucario asked at once. Ness and Lucas were too busy finding comfort in petting Duckie, Dark Pit was full of angst and hugging Abby and W was in a lotus-position on one of the seats, trying to keep calm.

"Yesh, Dark Lord, Dark Lord!" Yoshi insisted. He then went to the back of the bus where he rummaged through one of the bags and found a rubber ball. He tossed it for Duckie. The dog tossed it back in a similar manner as he conjured clays. They occupied themselves that way while the adult humanoids talked about boring adult humanoid stuff.

"Your nemesis, I am afraid," the doctor told Link. "Ganondorf is not only alive and well, but he's got himself a palace of bones in the West from which he is in command of part of our present horde of unfortunate ones. There are certain monsters in the army as well, the standard undead beings of our worlds… He's not gotten the Reapers from the angels' world as they are loyal to other cruel powers, but he has dead turtles, those things from Hyrule that like to jump on you and mock procreation…"

"Hey! Hey!" Link said, holding up his hands. "That was mostly my ancestor's problem! The ReDeads in my era just screamed and hit people with big swords! Don't think I wasn't grateful!"

"We've seen them," Toon Link said, "mixed in with the standard sick and turned."

The Doctor looked to the ceiling and looked thoughtful for a moment. "You know, for a while, I was beginning to think the whole 'zombie mythos' in movies and such was very much a reflection of our universal fear of disease. Not only that, but I saw it as a reflection of a hidden desire of civilization to see people who are sick with anything we fear greatly as non-people. It is much easier to do the harsher things that need to be done to quell a rampant disease if you stop thinking of ill people as beings like yourself and starts seeing them as merely bodies. This whole debacle would seem to prove me correct."

Dark Pit let go of Abby, whipped around and punched Doctor Mario in the nose. He fell backward, caught by Samus.

"Pit… was a person!" he growled. "A really annoying person who acted like a puppet for a dippy goddess and liked eating food off the floor, but he was a person, dammit!"

"Calm down," Zelda commanded, grabbing him by the wings. She pinched the arches uncomfortably just to show him that if he got out of line, life would become painful for him.

What Link saw beside him was the ghost of Pit looking fretful. He'd become distressed as soon as Dark Pit had insulted Palutena as "dippy." Link tried to ignore the vociferous rant that followed that, of course, only he was able to hear despite it being directed at "Pittoo." For just a moment, he wished for his ancestor's little blue fairy-buddy or even Midna insulting him in pitches only canines could detect. Could spirits make one's ears bleed? He wondered. If Pit wasn't a real ghost and merely represented his guilt and growing insanity, Link was comforted to know, at least, that his insanity was consistent with his memory of the kid's character. At this point, however, Link was sure he was legitimate, and silently cursed Palutena for giving him an exclusive pass to incorporeal angelic rantings.

_As loud as you ever were, Pit, as loud as ever. How can you be so hot-blooded when you no longer have blood? Sensitive Hylian ears! He can't hear you, kid, remember? _

"That's… not what I was saying," the doctor said as he stood up, cracking his schnoz back into place. "I was merely making an observation about how society tends to perceive frightening outbreaks. It does seem that in our case, we really are dealing with the soulless, or, worse yet, those with trapped souls. Every time you re-kill one of the necrotic, you are well within your rights to deem it a mercy-kill."

"Heh," Dark Pit said, calming down. "And here I was thinking it was revenge. It doesn't taste as sweet if it's mercy."

"In any case," Doctor Mario continued, "Someone should really be behind the wheel right now. I take it you are headed to Hyrule and the Triforce?"

The Links nodded, as did Zelda.

"It's not much of a plan, but it's what we've got," Samus said casually.

Link remembered the extra feather – Red's – pinned to his tunic and presented it to Doctor Mario. "For both you and Yoshi. It's one of Pit's. We wear them to remind us to fight for those who no longer can."

The physician took it with reverence. "I wish I could have saved him. And Peach, and my brother-self. Red… everyone… But, yes, if you are headed toward your fabled powers, I do take it that one of us is going to make an important wish?"

"Yep," Link said.

"We must beat Ganondorf to it, then! His army is on the march. I have seen it with my own eyes. I do not think that he wishes to heal our weary souls or to reverse our losses."

Samus took the driver's seat as Link pointed straight ahead, for that's where he could see a tell-tale glimmer that spoke to him of his home on the horizon. It is also where the airship sighted earlier in the far distance was headed.

"We're almost home, Sam. Gun it."

She flipped on the radio. Another animation soundtrack disc played, the final lyrics of a much too-upbeat song:

…_Sono namida boku ni yudanete kurenai ka _

_Nani korobi ya oki_

_Tomo ni yuku! Mata saikau tte kikasete_

_Namida, namida, zai jien!_

_(…Those tears, will you leave them to me? _

_When you fall, get right back up again_

_Let's go together! Tell me "This is the best" again_

_Tears, tears, goodbye!) _

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><p><em><strong>Congratulations! You've got the Doctor Mario Riding Yoshi Trophy! Continue?<strong>_

* * *

><p><em><strong>The song for this chapter is from a source that will not yet be revealed. It's a clue for those with a sharp eye who are turbo-nerdy like I am as to what I have in store for the story. <strong>_

_**We are headed into the end-game territory, but this fan fiction is one I plan multiple endings for. I have designs on three different endings. The song in the chapter is a clue as to the nature of one of these endings. Please do not spoil it in the reviews or comments. If you really want to find out if you've "guessed the clue" before the ending-chapters are posted, please PM me, nice and private-like so you don't ruin it for the rest of the kiddos. Thank you very much. **_


	9. Ending 1: Total Party Kill

_**Notes: **__This chapter contains one of three different endings in mind for this story. However, this does NOT mean that you can skip this chapter as soon as other endings are posted. Every "end-chapter" has content that will feed into the others. In other words you DO have to read this chapter in order to understand the other ending chapters. Thank you._

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><p><strong>ROAD TRIP<strong>

Link was pretty sure they'd crossed the fuzzy border into Hyrule when the air started smelling of home. There was the distinctive scent of the fall leaves of Faron Woods, of grass-combed wind, of pumpkins growing in fields and everything that bespoke _Hyrule -_ his Hyrule. The road had turned to dirt many miles back. It was difficult to navigate Otto on the medieval dirt cart-trails. There was talk of abandoning the bus in favor of footwork or finding horses, but everyone decided that it was too risky.

Dark Pit, meanwhile, hung out in one of the back seats with Abby, staring intently into a hand-mirror. Zelda had given it to him when he'd wanted to check his hair. Now, he was looking into it and appeared to be whispering to it. He was smiling. It was a rare thing to see a smile grace 'Pittoo's" face, at least when it wasn't a smug smirk after kicking someone's tail in a Smash match. Cautiously, Lucas crept up on him and peered over his shoulder when he was distracted. The dark angel was quite good-looking, everyone agreed, but nobody could be that vain. Scratch that. Meta Knight was so vain he had his face emblazoned on his airship, but Meta Knight was not here.

Lucas stifled a gasp, biting his lip just in time to keep Dark Pit from noticing him. He sat back next to Ness and Lucario. "I think Link might be right," he said.

"Huh?" Ness asked.

"Maybe its Lady Zelda's mirror that's special. I didn't see Dark Pit's reflection in it."

"So, he's a vampire-angel, what else is new?" Ness joked.

"No!" Lucas insisted, keeping everything quiet. "I'm pretty sure I saw Pit in it!"

"No, really?" Ness wondered. "I wanna see!"

"No!" Lucas said, grabbing him by the sleeve and looking back over to Dark Pit, who was softly laughing at the mirror. "We shouldn't disturb him! This is private for him."

"Do you think you might see your mom or your brother in the mirror if he puts it down?"

"I don't know," Lucas said, pouting. "I don't think so. I think the mirror-thing might just be for him. Maybe Zelda put a spell on it."

"Maybe."

"His aura is a little brighter," Lucario rumbled, purring telepathically. "We are all in a little better spirits." He sniffed. "I do think there is some magic in the very air of this land."

"Hey!" Toon Link exclaimed, hopping over the seats to peer at the other boys and the jackal. "Maybe if we stop or there's time, we can play some pumpkin-ball! My big brother says we're near Ordon Province, were people grow pumpkins!"

"Pumpkin-ball?" Ness asked skeptically.

"It's like your baseball," Toony said, "Except that you take a sword… or a bat… I guess, and stick it in a pumpkin, and you can hurl it like a ball!"

"That doesn't sound like baseball at all," Ness assessed, shaking his head. "But it still sounds like fun!"

That's when the dropping sensation happened, and the screech of metal on stones, and the great cloud of dust. The entire tail end of Otto suddenly fell away; sending everyone, save for Samus braced in the drivers' seat, backwards. The double-doors fell open and standing there, in the middle of the road was a zombie-version of Donkey Kong with the rear axel of the bus in his massive hands.

Everyone had their own expletives for this – words little American boys should not say, but do anyway, followed by something indecipherable in Ancient Greek by their raven-winged angel. The Hylian curses were perhaps the most interesting, said by the princess of all people, as well as her pair of heroes. The Chozo-speak coming out of Samus was completely without translation. W retained her calm. Doctor Mario let forth a "fascinating," followed by science-ese. Yoshi simply proclaimed "Whoa!" The dog and the Absol barked their little heads off.

And, everyone was out of the ruined bus, weapons drawn, powers at the ready as more figures shuffled out of the woods. The creature that was formerly Donkey Kong glared at them with reddened eyes as he beat the ground, which was not a problem for those good at jumping or with a Power of Flight.

"Fox-Fire!" sounded from back in the woods. A familiar figure shot into the air, flanked by another familiar shadow. Donkey Kong fell to blaster-fire as a beloved old friend landed hard on his prosthetics in front of Link.

"Fox?"

"The one and only!" the anthropomorphic creature replied. "Where have you been, Wolf Boy? You know we've been lookin' everywhere for you!"

Falco joined Dark Pit on the slanted roof of the ruined bus, taking a back-to-back stance. "Nice to see ya, kiddo," the blue bird said. "Your flock's lookin' a little light."

"I don't want to talk about it," Dark Pit replied.

"Less talk, more firepower. Gotcha."

Somewhere in the background, someone "Falcon Paaaaunched!" an undead Diddy Kong. There seemed to be more former Smashers in this group of zombies that what the group of Otto had encountered before. There were several more Miis.

"What the?" Samus asked, charging up her canon, "Is that R.O.B.? Is he on our side? Why are his optics red?"

"Machines are startin' to get infected to, sweetheart," Captain Falcon said, gliding up to her. "Don't ask me how. We lost little Mega Man a while back, didn't know how to put him down, so he's out there. His mechanical doggie, too."

"How in the world does a physical disease cross the boundary into electronics?" W asked as she "saluted the sun" into a vanguard of gray Mii Swordfighters.

"Foxed if I know," Falco replied. "Maybe this kind of thing infects 'soul' or AI as much as blood."

PK attacks were going on all around. Lucario stuck to Aura Spheres, staying off his injured foot. Abby the Absol sent wave after wave of night-slash attacks into infected Pokemon that were coming out of the woodwork.

"Hey!" Fox protested his name being used as an expletive. He turned to Link as Link readied a powder-bomb. "Glad to see you're okay…. Didn't know if anybody had gotten out of Smash City before people from Snake's world nuked it."

"Snake…nuked it?"

"That's our best theory. What we saw signs of what looked like his people checking the remains of the area. You do remember he got out before this party started, right?"

"Yeah."

"Who else is alive?"

"The Fire Emblem family and good ol' Meta Knight. The smoking remains of the Halberd are out over yonder. Kinda crashed the thing when something started messing with the electronics… Hyrule magic, we guess."

"Or, it got infected somehow," Link said, making a face.

"That, too."

Link lobbed his artillery and then brought out his bow. He'd do better doing clean-shots on the various former arena-spectators crowding him in. "All of the Swords got out?"

"Yeah," Fox explained. "They were really worried about you, too, and the young one, and the sword-wielding angels. Your whole sword-fellowship was broken up. Good that you're all in one piece."

"Not all of us," Link said, loosing an arrow. "We lost Pit a while back. He's with his in spirit."

The Hylian could glimpse Pit's spirit making a face at what was a bad pun out of the corner of his eye. He had nothing in this, being the expert wielder of horrible puns. "Look out!" the dead angel shouted.

Link nearly dropped his bow when he saw a washed-out version of Pac-Man coming through. He was zombie-fied himself, but was munching through fellow zombies – cracking spines and tearing through their limbs in a black-blood cannibal feast.

"The Triforce!" Toon Link shouted. He held up his left hand, upon which the symbol for the Triforce of Courage had appeared, glowing. Link looked at his own hand, which bore the same mark. A mark on Zelda's hand flashed to life. Instantly, they all knew what they must do.

"The Temple of Time! It's in these woods!" Link shouted. "I know a shortcut! Zelda, Toony and I can feel where it is! Come on! Follow us!"

Toony ran forward given an opening, right through a clear spot in the woods. That was just about when he got sucked up in a vacuum of breath by a white, dead-eyed Kirby.

"Toony!" Zelda gasped, seeing it happen. Link readied his bow to pop the undead marshmallow just as Toon Link was spit out. The zombie-Kirby gained a hat upon his head and bounced off to engage Captain Falcon. Toon Link got up off the ground. He'd turned pale and his eyes glowed red, not unlike his "dark" costume.

Link kept his bowstring tensed, shaking. Toon Link stalked toward him and Lady Zelda, moaning, the infection taking instantly into him through some mysterious process of Kirby's corrupted innards. Link winced, letting his arrow fly. With a "pink!" it bounced off a curved blade.

Dark Pit stood between Link and Toony. "No!" he said, glaring at Link, his wings tense. "I can't let you put him down! I'LL take the guilt this time! We'll call ourselves even!"

Swiftly, his angelic blades separated the zombie of Toon Link's head from his body. Link had no time to thank Dark or to mourn. Zelda grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him along.

They found themselves running through the forest. Other survivors were on their heels. Duckie and Abby barked and sent clays and slashes into the pursuers, acting as the rear-guard. Fox and Falco came up in the middle. Link saw a flash of swords from people up on one of the hills between the trees. His heart swelled with relief and pride. The Swords. Someone was clearly casting powerful spells from a book, as well.

A pair of zombies dove and grabbed for Lucas and Ness. Lucario stood between them and kicked them away, only to get swarmed. "Go on!" he cried.

The two boys were in despair, but they sent PSI attacks with all of their strength. That is, until a pair of Mii-Swordfighter-zombies sidelined them and zombie-Kirby swept in to take Ness.

Yoshi made eggs out of a few of the assailants, which, when they cracked, allowed members of the Swords to stab them into re-death. Marth and Ike were brutally efficient, as was Roy, whom everyone had thought had went home before the Mansion fell. As it turned out, he had come to be a spectator to the Smash Tournament and unfortunately had been caught up in all this.

"Yoshi and Marth should be in the rear-guard!" Doctor Mario announced. "They're infection survivors, so they're immune!"

"We can still get eaten, Doc!" Marth responded.

"Like you're gonna let that happen!" Ike said with a smile as he relieved a zombie Game N' Watch and a Mii-Gunner of their arms first, and then their heads.

"Hey, you ever find the new guy?" Link called to them, "The guy with that huge weird red sword?"

"We have not," Meta Knight intoned, flapping up beside him. "We think he failed to get out of the city."

Link's face fell when he found among the infected people that he knew – people that he loved. Zelda had to tug him by the shoulders to keep him moving as she sent a wave of Din's Fire into bloody-faced beings that had once been Rusl and Uli – the Ordonian couple who had raised him.

A large horde of zombie Gerudo-warriors came for the group. Link, however, knew where he was going. He could feel the Triforce calling to his soul. Its energy burned in his bones.

Yes, these sunken clearings were familiar. He did not know how he was able to get here without the use of the golden cuccoo like he had used before, and likewise, he was without Midna, but they had, indeed, stumbled upon another route. Zelda lighted down with him, using Farore's Wind to keep herself in a gentle glide. He hopped and jumped. There were infected everywhere, and his friends fighting them.

Link looked around and found the pedestal for the Master Sword in the courtyard of the ruins of the Temple of Time. "I just hope it's there!" he gasped.

"It will be," Zelda assured him. "The true-Triforce always gravitates to tune of Time."

The edge of the forest around them was lit on fire. The pale face of an infected Bowser showed itself. Yoshi and Doctor Mario took him on. The turtle-dragon grabbed Yoshi and broke his neck before stomping the doctor into the dirt.

"There's no time…" Zelda said. "We have to go in, now!"

Link struck his sword and withdrew it, opening the Gates of Time. He sprinted to the doors and heaved them open, revealing the interior of the ancient temple as it had been in the past. He was constantly looking back. Marth and Ike came up beside him. "We'll guard!" the insisted. Duckie and Abby came running. W was busy kicking a former Geurdo in the jaw. Dark Pit was yelling and carrying on. Link was sure he saw what looked like the remains of Mayor Bo tackle him to the ground in some corrupted form of a wrestling-move.

Link and Zelda ran through the doors, followed by the dog, the Absol and, unexpectedly, Dark Pit, who dashed in and fell to his knees at the last minute as the doors began sealing.

"Marth! Ike!" Link screamed. He could hear their screams on the other side. The dog whined, the Absol barked and Zelda went to her knees. She put her hand on Dark Pit's back, gently. He hissed and winced in pain.

"He's in bad shape," she said softly to Link as he turned around.

"Dark?" he asked.

"You can…" Dark Pit began, "You can call me Pittoo… you've earned it."

The angel was, indeed, in terrible shape. His right wing was missing and his left wing was partially stripped to bones. Blood pooled beneath his arms as he held himself up on the floor of the ancient interior of the Temple of Time.

Link's brain took that moment to notice that he hadn't heard the squawking and warnings of the spirit of Pit in a while. In fact, he didn't see the ghost-angel anywhere.

"We…we should press on…to the interior of the place…r-right?" Dark Pit asked. His voice sounded mixed, like there was another voice layered on top of his – his twin's voice.

Zelda gasped. She stared at the light reflecting off the small puddle of blood that had formed beneath the disheveled Pittoo. Link noticed it, as well. Pit looked back at them from the reflection. His eyes pleaded with Zelda.

"I'll do what I can," Zelda said to the puddle, trying to send her healing magic into Dark Pit's body.

Dark Pit shook his head. "It's not gonna work. Maybe I can keep going for a while, but with my wings messed up like this… I… I'm a goner. P-Pit would want me to help you, so I'll do that… I guess." He grit his teeth and got up, hissing in pain. "If those doors don't hold… I've still got my weapons."

Pittoo promptly withdrew his Dark Pit staff and sat down before the main doors, setting up the magical rifle to shoot anything that tried to come through.

"We can't leave you!" Zelda said tearfully.

Dark Pit withdrew the mirror she'd given him and held it up so she could see his "reflection." He spoke again, in the double-voice.

"We're together," the Pits said. "We are already dead. If you get to the Triforce, we will live again. Otherwise, we are ready to meet each other again in the City of Souls."

Dark Pit attempted to give Zelda her mirror back. "No," she insisted. "You two should be together."

Duckie licked Dark Pit on the arm before trying to lead Link through one of the open doors of the temple interior. Abby sat down beside Dark, refusing to move.

Link and Zelda wended their way through the various rooms of the time-displaced Temple of Time.

"At least it doesn't have guardians and monsters like it did last time," Link said nervously. "Oh, don't go near those statues. They might come to life."

The dog sniffed about. Link followed the increasing pulsing feeling in his hand. In fact, a small light began to show from beneath his glove shooting out to form a little pinpoint, like the triangle on a compass. Zelda's hand had a similar glow, responding to the true Triforce of Wisdom like Link's mark was responding to the Triforce of Courage. No doubt, Ganondorf was on his way, with his army of the undead going before. Whose wishes would prevail?

The two Hylians and their canine companion wended their way up the floors of the temple. "I can't believe we're the only ones left," Link sighed. "Us and the dog."

"Dark Pit is downstairs with Abby," Zelda reminded him.

"Dark Pit is dying. Pit once told me how vital the wings are to the angels of their world, how only restoration from a supernatural spring had saved him from death. We don't have anything like that for his brother right now."

"He's brave for being our guardian." Zelda said with a nod.

"He's doing the only thing he can do at this point," Link said dryly.

Just then, the sound of doors being hawed loose thundered downstairs as well as the sound of percussive weapon-fire. "Goodbye!" Dark Pit's voice sounded in a yell that was as cocky as it ever was on the stages.

Duckie howled. He howled again, perhaps for Abby as well as Dark.

"Onwards and upwards," Link said, his head bowed as he took a stairwell. He sighed. "Post haste."

Zelda paused at an archway, holding up her hand to get a good look at the guiding light. Suddenly, her eyes went wide as a sword-tip pierced through her chest, wielded by an armored Stalfos that had sprung up behind her. Duckie jumped into action and grabbed the creature by a femur. With a "Hiiiya!" Link cleaved the thing's skull. After he sent it clattering to the ground, he placed a bomb upon the scattered bones and took Zelda up in his arms and carried her away from the blast-radius.

"Zelda?" Link hoped. She was limp and her eyes spoke to him of death. "Zelda…"

He put her down, leaning her up against the brickwork of a wall. He closed her eyelids and brushed hair hair-tails out of her face. He knelt down and gave her a kiss on the lips. "Farewell, Princess," he said. "I'll see you again. I'm almost there. I'll see you again."

Duckie was howling long and low until his howl was suddenly cut-off in a yelp. Link looked just in time to see him pulled back and munched within the maw of the zombie-fied Pac-Man. ReDeads flanked the hungry being, screaming and creeping forward. Link ran until he came to sealed doors behind which a light shone.

Yes… he felt it in his very soul! The Triforce had, indeed, incarnated physically and it was here! It was so unlike his first trip through this place; when the Triforce had stayed in the Golden Realm save for the marks upon the gods' chosen avatars. Link tried to ignore the smell of dog's blood as he braced his shoulder and leapt into the doors to burst them loose. Forget hunting everywhere for a damn key! Dodging guillotine-pendulums… yes, this was familiar. He jumped, dodged and rolled.

Then, he beheld it. Link saw the very Power of the Gods sitting right before him. He did not remember this room in the Temple of Time before – one with a white pedestal and curtains. He pumped his legs forward only to be tossed to the ground as something grabbed his calf.

_No! So close! Oh, Triforce, hear my wish! _

The Trifrorce remained silent and indifferent. He could not reach it to touch it. Cold, dead hands held him down. Link looked up to see the pale, undead faces of Ike, Roy and Dark Pit, the latter twitching one bony wing with black blood marring the remains of black feathers. Out of the corner of his eyes, Link saw the mirror Zelda had given him shattered on the floor. The hunting dog was baying – a howl more low and eerie than ever before. Samus, out of her armor, laughed at him with black blood dripping out of her nose. She uttered a guttural growl.

"Did you think you could escape, Fairy Boy?" she asked in a deep hiss. Link was sure he felt his chain-mail lifted up and a sword open up his middle. He gnashed his teeth in pain. Dark Pit gripped his hair and held him back as the others held him down.

Link looked at the high, vaulted ceiling of the temple and the gentle golden glow of the Triforce. He whispered a prayer, the one he had spoken over so many of the Fellowship up until now. The once-Hero never thought he'd have to, or, indeed, get the chance to say the Hylian Prayer for the Dying and the Dead over himself. This was no quick death in battle, the kind he'd always expected for himself.

"From Farore's Life to Nayru's Wisdom… Aaaaagh! May Din's Power grant my spirit rest… aaaack!" He could taste blood in his mouth as he started to strangle. He felt parts of his body being torn and slipping from him. "May…maa-aya-ay…the L-light….of Hylia… Aaaaaaah! Light my way home!"

Link felt his breath slip as the sounds of Ganondorf's laughter and fresh meat being eaten filled his ears.

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><p><em><strong>Congratulations! You've got the Zombie Bonewing Dark Pit Trophy! Continue? <strong>_

_**ENDING POSSIBILITY ONE OF THREE. **_

_**You just hit the Bad Ending on the game! For other possible endings, stay tuned!**_

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><p><em><strong>I worry that I may have made this rushed. <strong>_

_**Pumpkin-ball… a fun thing to play in Skyward Sword. Try it! I try to whang the pumpkins into NPCs' heads. I haven't tried it as much in Twilight Princess. There, someone yells at me for wasting the pumpkins. Darn Ordon villagers! They grow right back! **_

_**I'm planning on more issues with the electronics/mechanical zombies to show up in the second ending, since I plan that to be a full-plot parody of a favorite episode of a quirky anime in which that happened. **_

… _**I think I had too much fun with this chapter. **_


	10. Ending 2: A Dandy Ending, Baby

**ROAD TRIP**

Link felt his former friends holding him down. He prayed the Hylian Prayer for the Dead, watching the light of the Triforce glow above him. He felt teeth sink into his left arm. The pain from such a deep bite, not to mention the stress from the situation he was in caused stars and blackness to edge his vision. He expected to awaken in Farore's golden fields, the Land of the Ancestors, the Heaven for Heroes.

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><p>Link groaned as he got out of bed in his chambers at the Smash Mansion. It had been rebuilt in recent months, due to popular demand. The fallout in the city was no problem for anyone living there anymore, mainly because no one in Smash City was technically living anymore.<p>

Several months had passed between the time told upon the previous pages of this tale and the company of Smash getting back to business as usual. Becoming a zombie hadn't stopped Link's daily activities much. Sure, his skin was pale and bloodless and he had problems with it occasionally flaking off when his chainmail rubbed him the wrong way, but otherwise, no biggie. His reflexes were fine at first – as many new zombies could be quite speedy, but they had tapered off into a sluggish, dull rhythm. He wasn't quite as quick with his clawshot anymore, but he managed.

"Life" came back to the usual routines for all of the Smashers, despite their big adventure. Those that had been partially-eaten or killed prior to zombiefication came back, too, in undead form. Zombie Link had given the body of Zelda a not-so gentle kiss and that had been enough to cause her to re-animate. One of Ganodnorf's fresh minions had gotten to him, killing his desire to rule the world. In fact, Zombie Ganondorf had become quite meek compared to his fully-alive self. Mario came back and, as for Peach, even with her head blown apart, she'd managed to crick herself to un-life thanks to the delicate patchwork of Dr. Undead Mario. It was a wonder what heavy-duty staples and duct tape could do.

"Maaaoh…ooh…" Dark Pit greeted Link as the latter wandered into the Main Hall.

(Now, zombies do typically speak in moans and groans that most observers think of as mindless. However, there are subtle differences in these moans. Zombies, in fact, have a rich and vibrant language with a variety of expressions.

Observe Link, if you will. For the moment, he is staring at you with flat eyes and a dropped jaw. "Mooooah!" he says. That is his happy face.

"Moooah!" Anger.

"Moooah!" Sadness.

You see, it's quite simple. However, for the rest of this chapter, I will translate what the Smashers are saying to one another in the narrative).

Dark Pit greeted Link with a "Maaaaoh…ooh." This translates to "Hey." His right wing was still missing and his left wing was still stripped partially to bones. He'd learned how to work his exposed radius and ulna with the remaining scraps of muscle in order to flap what was left of the wing, but, sadly, he had no more Power of Flight. Pit shambled up beside him. You see, once Pit had failed to preserve Link's life, his spirit decided to re-enter his buried body. He dug himself out of the grave, but still wears the bloody bandage upon his head beneath his laurel crown. There is a dot of dark blood right in the center that makes him almost look like he's wearing a blackened version of the Japanese flag.

Marth and Yoshi were once thought to be immune to the zombie-infection, being that they had initially survived infection. They succumbed, as well, due to the fact that diseases have a tendency to mutate. They'd caught a second-strain.

All this meant was that the Smashers were one big happy family again. They all gravitated back toward the ruined Smash City after the failed attempt to quell the infection with superior weaponry. Someone had even gotten to the culprits, ensuring that a certain Mr. Snake was a part of the roster again. Even the divinities had returned, and, surprisingly enough, they proved as capable of falling to the infection as any mortal.

It was kind of strange, even to fellow zombies, seeing a gray Luma shamble about instead of bounce…

As for Palutena, she had come back as soon as a portal was opened to try to save her boys. She had a trip to the Rewind Spring lined right up for them. However, her angels cornered her. She was still quite a beauty, even in a zombie-fied state, but she had a tendency to become weakened by her own holy light whenever she used it.

"Moan! Maaaoooh! Moooooah!" Pit had said upon "acquiring" her with his brother.

"Moooaaah! Garrrgh! Oooh!" she'd responded. – This roughly translates to "Lady Palutena! I'm so glad you're back!" followed by "I'm glad to see you, too, Pit!" spoken in the zombie equivalent for laughter.

After this, Palutena tried to cook a big dinner of brains-from-places-we-do-not-want-to-think-about for everyone, only to bring a troop of shriveled up dead carrots to life.

The Hands, naught but bones beneath their gloves, chose to run the Tournaments again, although they were… a bit more sluggish this time. Every Smash match now ran as though someone had grabbed a stopwatch-item and whenever anyone grabbed said item, it became a Super-Slow-Mo Smash.

The "live" spectators loved it, but ratings on the televised airings began to dwindle. Most actually-alive fans missed the high-energy spectacles of the past and did not warm up to the Zombie Smash. Sure, they were gorier than ever before, what with black blood flying everywhere and the fighters being able to re-attach their own severed limbs at will with a bit of duct tape and no pain, but there was just no more frenetic energy to the battles anymore. Some families found the new-Smash too frightening to let their children watch. Funds began to dry up.

Now, living expenses were dramatically reduced for everyone, seeing that un-life is a lot easier to sustain than normal life. Still, certain basics needed to be covered – electricity… air conditioning to keep the rotting and smells to a minimum… Everyone continued to wear the same tattering and fraying clothing, feeling no shame or need to change themselves. At the same time, Link enjoyed the occasional trips to Telma's in Hyrule, and that required cold hard rupees.

Also, everyone really did want to go back to the way things were. Sadly, between Doctor Mario, the Hands, the various characters who'd once possessed healing energies and everything else everyone looked into, there was found no cure for zombism.

The cycle of feeding and despair began. Everyone had a craving for raw meat. Fortunately, there were enough cattle, cuccoos and Ordon goats found in the various lands to fulfill this, in addition to supplies that could be trucked into the Smash Mansion and the arenas. The zombie-Smashers would binge on regrets and despair – then on truckloads of raw meat. Kirby, Pac-Man and Yoshi took up about a truckload each every time they fed. Pit was hardly better.

"Maoaooaah! Grrrrooon….urgh…argh…" W offered one day, seeing that the meat-budget was beginning to get low. She gave everyone in the Smash cafeteria cups of yogurt. "Arrrgh…grrrr!" she insisted. - This means "This is a healthier alternative. Try it."

Everyone did try it, and found it to their liking. Ganondorf, particularly, loved to sit for hours at a table in a chair too small for his hulking frame nursing a little cup of strawberry-flavored yogurt.

What's so great about yogurt, you ask? Well, it is full of live bacterial cultures. It is a fermented food which, apparently, has the potential to help other things "ferment." The Smash zombies found they enjoyed it for certain preservative qualities.

It also kept them from slaughtering all the goats in Hyrule, seeing as they could be put to a more sustainable use.

After a time, Link's rotting brain came up with a thought. He realized just how the Smashers could end their money-troubles. He traveled back to Hyrule and bothered a certain happy-clapping obnoxious banker he knew. Now, bank-fraud was nothing new to the Hylian Hero, for his ancestor-and-presumably-other-life had done it before to this mysterious knee-slapping fellow through time-travel.

Fortunately for Link, he'd previously established a life-insurance policy with the man. The banker had refused at first, seeing as Link's job was dangerous, but Link had been able to collect enough rupees on his quest for a down-payment that shut the man up. It is quite difficult to convince the holder of your insurance policy that you are, in fact, dead AND your "next of kin" when you are moving around and can participate in the Super Smash Tournament. After much argument, Link convinced the man by holding him up by the neck and breathing a big whiff of zombie-breath in his face. Not wanting to die from asphyxiation, the banker paid out on Link's life-insurance.

Zelda managed to convince the Kingdom of Hyrule of just the opposite: Being undead meant that she was technically living and still had rights and privileges, including the right to rule. She was able to acquire an allotment from the royal treasury for her stay in Smash City and to keep the tournaments going. Peach, being held together with duct tape, was less convincing to her subjects. The Toads just ran and hid, barricading their homes when she made a return to her kingdom.

Palutena commanded Pit to acquire hearts for the funding. Of course, being a zombie, he didn't quite understand that he was to acquire the kind of cute, monetary-value Valentine hearts that he always used to get from monsters. He tended to bring home harvests of things from monsters and men that were still beating.

Money problems solved, the Zombie Smash continued. Forever. In fact, it became such a sensation that the living spectators of the sport found themselves the unexpected victims of the undead spectators.

One of these days, you might be playing a Smash game on your console or your 3DS and BOOM! There's Zombie Mario, RIGHT BEHIND YOU!

The infection spread to all of the worlds of Nintendo… then beyond, into other videogame worlds… the erstwhile worlds of Sega… of Sony… even X-Box. Oh, that little Candy Crush game you've got on your cell phone? It's a goner. Robot Unicorn Attack? How about Zombie Robot Unicorn attack!

Yes, that is another thing. The robots. No one knows how the infection managed to mutate into a form that could infect electronics, but not even cybernetic characters were safe. It is rumored, that much like another zombie-videogame crossover fic out there, that even stone giants from one of your charming author's favorite non-Nintendo games were infected, despite already having black blood.

Soon, everyone in all of the universes was an undead version of itself. It happened faster than anyone could have thought. The Triforce, at some point, probably became a zombie, too, turning black and inverting on itself, showing its Lorule-shadow.

All is not lost. There is no more war or poverty, pain or death – for everything is zombie. Everything is one.

Zombie Pit even helpfully…demolished…the Forth Wall…with….an….Ore…Club…

Maoaoggh! Grrraggh! Gaaah! Acccck! Argh! Urrrrrgggggghllll….

* * *

><p><em><strong>Congratulations! You've got the Otto the Bus Trophy! A long-overdue trophy, it's ramping over the road, like in the first chapter! Continue? <strong>_

_**ENDING TWO OF THREE. This is of course, the joke-chapter. For the last possible ending, stay tuned!**_

* * *

><p><em><strong>This ending was based upon Episode 4 of Season one of the anime "Space Dandy," as some readers may have guessed. For those who aren't into anime or just not into Adult Swim anime, "Space Dandy" is a quirky little science-fiction comedy series about a loser in space and his crew consisting of a cat-alien and an old, but cute robotvacuum cleaner. They eak out a living (just enough to keep their ship running and to make trips to the space-Hooters) by bounty hunting rare and unclassified aliens and they aren't very good at it. **_

_**The series has a loose to non-existent continuity, which means that anything that happens by the end of a given episode has no bearing on any of the other episodes, being that "alternate universes" are a major theme of the series. Episode 4 of Season 1 was a zombie-episode and I found it THE most creative and fun take on a zombie apocalypse I had ever seen. Yes, robots became zombies in the episode without any explanation whatsoever. At the end of the episode, everyone, including the narrator/God was a zombie. Of course, I had a parody ending for this fic based upon it in mind ever since I started the story. **_


	11. Ending 3: A Hero's Reward

**ROAD TRIP**

Link's fingers brushed gold dust. He watched it swirl about his glove. His heart swelled with desires – for his friends, for his world and for all the worlds. He felt himself being dragged down. He smelled that gummy, gutty smell that filled him with horror. Strangely enough, he felt none of what was going on with his body. With a last "Hiyaa!" he pushed forward, only to be dragged back. The hero was pretty sure that the last thing he saw a pale-faced Samus Aran tearing into a piece of his liver with her teeth…

And he felt none of this as his vision blurred, save for a painful pressure in his lower abdomen. He couldn't help but laugh. If any of the zombies took a big bite of that, oh, what they'd get splashed in the face with! He didn't think he'd had that much water and red potion lately…

His nose twitched as warm light entered his vision. His eyelids fluttered open. He smelled familiar dust – not the golden kind that edged the Triforce, but the common kind of a room that needed cleaning. The young man found himself on his back in his pale blue cotton pajamas, a soft blanket of Ordon goat wool over him. He registered the wooden interior of the room he was in as well as the pictures hung on the walls of various Smash battles. He was in his chambers at the Smash Mansion – the apparently perfectly intact Smash Mansion. There was his bookshelf, his weapons-wall and his writing desk with the hand carved wolf-figure on it.

Everything was familiar… He registered that he had just awakened. That, and that he really had to pee.

Link hauled himself up to use the latrine – the indoor plumbing of the Smash quarters being a goddess-send – and winced at the cold hardwood floor on his bare feet. As he took care of business and gave his teeth a quick brush, he scratched the back of his neck beneath his long night-cap with the fuzzy-ball on the end he pondered if it was all a dream. The entire road trip, had he dreamed it? Link knew as well as anyone that time could be distorted in the dreaming mind.

His muscles felt like he'd been on that damned trip. His back was cramped – the kind of feeling that he got from trying to sleep in bus-seats. His legs and his lungs burned – the kind of feeling from the last sprint through the Temple of Time. Maybe he'd had a really hard Smash match last night? He certainly didn't remember who it was against. Maybe it was Master Hand again and the Hand had flicked him in the face hard.

Link wandered to his writing desk. The light from the second-floor window streamed in, telling him it was nearly noon. His bare feet shifted dirt on the floor. The Hylian Hero scrutinized it. It was burnt-rust red; the kind that had been all over the tracts of desert the bus had rolled through. On his desk lay a handful of dried herbs – Gerudo Sagebrush, and something that made Link's ears perk right up in horror.

An arrow lay on his desk. It was one of his, and it was splintered off and broken in the middle. It had a bit of some dried black substance on its metal tip and soaked into the part of the shaft where it met the arrowhead.

* * *

><p><em>He'd come back from his angry tirade, Zelda soothing him along. The Fellowship needed to bury Pit. Samus had carried him to the grave that Red and the dog had worked hard to prepare. Dark Pit was off on his own, curled up knees to chest, wings over himself, shivering and trying to keep the others from watching him cry. <em>

_He'd come back to the place where the angel had fallen. There were a few spats of blood on the ground from where the wound had bled when the brave boy had been taken away. And there it was, the fatal arrow, discarded upon the clay earth. Link picked it up. He held it in his hands and examined it, scarcely believing that it was one of his. He'd never use it again. He formed two fists over it and with a mighty snarl, snapped it in two. _

_He'd tossed it into the grave after saying the Hylian Prayer for the Dead, substituting "The Light of Palutena" for "The Light of Hylia."_

* * *

><p>Link blinked. What was it doing here? Or something a lot like it? He couldn't accuse Toon Link of pulling a prank on him because how would Toony know his nightmares? Was he talking in his sleep? How long was he out?<p>

If this was a joke, it was a cruel one.

That's when the sunlight struck a pokeball that was resting on the desk. The Hylian picked it up, puzzling over it. It could have been something he'd accidentally pocketed when coming off the stages. He was no Pokemon Trainer, but everyone used Pokemon as clever assistants. The indicator on it read that it was full. "Better get this back to Red, or to the stage props," Link muttered to himself. Curious, he hit the button on it to release what was inside, pointing the beam at the largest section of the room, in case it was something large.

"Fletchling!"

"A little Fletchling?"

The tiny bird hopped about, and then flapped upward to land on Link's shoulder.

"Hey! Stop that!" Link laughed as the little featherball playfully picked up some of his hair in its beak and started gently nibbling the edge of his ear. He withdrew the Pokemon and gave the ball a closer read.

"Nickname: Pit Icarus. FMR Trainer: Red Ketchum CRNT Trainer: Link D'Ordon."

"Okay, now, this is getting weird." Link sighed as placed the ball back on his desk.

In fact, things were so weird that Link didn't bother to change into his tunic. He slipped on his house-slippers and took a run down the stairway into the main hall. His heart was beating fast. He had to make sure everything was alright.

He found Kirby at the bottom of the stairwell, as pink and squishy as ever, dressed in a chef's hat and apron. He held up a platter of food – fried eggs and toast with spreadable Ordon goat cheese, apple butter, Lon Lon Milk and a joint of meat – Link's favorite breakfast. Link paused in front of the puffball. He shook his head in confusion. Kirby promptly opened up his maw and vacuum-sucked in the breakfast with a few small noises in his language that essentially said "More for me, then."

Of course, he accidentally sucked in too hard, drawing Link in. Link screamed loud and terribly enough to nearly rip the fabric of space-time.

_Zombies! Zombies! I'm being eaten! This is what happened to Toon! _

Kirby spit him out with a "Poooy?" sporting a copy of Link's pale-blue long sleeping cap and brandishing a pillow as a sword. DeeDeeDee gave him an amused expression. Link was left sitting on the stairs, rubbing his rump.

"What on Earth?" Peach asked. She and Mario turned from what they were discussing to attend to Link. In fact, all the Smashers were downstairs. Those that were not in the adjacent training rooms were staring at the mad Hylian.

Link shot up. He grabbed Mario and clapped him on the neck. He then grabbed Peach by the head and pulled at her face and gave her a quick little knock on the forehead. "You! You… your head's together! And you have a brain in there!" he exclaimed, "Um… I think!"

He darted off. "Why, I never!" Peach complained.

"What's going on, big brother?" Toon Link asked. Link grabbed him up, spun him by the arms to a loud "Wwwhooooah!" and hugged him tight, giving him a noogie.

"Hey! Hey! Stop that! I've gotta drive the Spirit Train in the arena today! You're messing up my hair!"

Link dropped him and ran to Red, who was talking to Dark Pit with Charizard out and an Absol at his side. "You promise to take care of her, right?" one of them said to the other.

Link barreled into Red and hugged him from behind. He patted a surprised and grumpy Charizard on the side. "Red! You're not bitten through! You're alive!"

"What?"

Charizard snorted flame. The Absol sat before Dark Pit and glared at Link. Dark Pit glared at Link. There were two sets of red eyes staring him down, equally un-amused.

"You're in your pajamas," Dark Pit pointed out. "Couldn't even get dressed today? You're lazier than Pit on Saturday."

Link looked around. He saw Pac-Man talking with Luigi, both very much alive. In a corner room, Mr. and Mrs. Whiffet were doing stretches while Little Mac was showing a punching bag his fury in time with the barking of his coach. Lucario was talking with Ness and Lucas. The Swords Club was at a big, round table talking to the newcomers. The one blonde young man seemed to be trying to explain his large, futuristic-looking blade to everyone else. There was a little "Mii" character in blue, enthusiastically showing off his own sword. Link had some trouble telling the difference between his old buddy, Marth, and the young woman who'd arrived whom some had been calling "Girl-Marth."

On a rug near the big communal fireplace on one wall, a dog was sleeping with a male mallard duck on his back with his head tucked beneath a wing.

Out of one of the training rooms, Samus walked tall with Fox and Falco. They spoke with a small Mii brandishing an arm-canon.

"Good to see you awake, Sleepyhead," Zelda called upon sighting Link. She glided out of the fireplace area where she'd been sitting in an armchair, reading, until she'd heard Link's ordeal at the base of the stairs.

Link rushed her, grabbed her, twirled her around as though they were waltzing and planted a hungry kiss right on her lips.

"Whoooo!" Everyone else called. They clapped and cheered. Link was sure that out of the corner of his right eye, he saw Pikmin dancing.

"Uh…Link?" Zelda asked, coming up for air. "What's gotten into you?" She was blushing very pink. She cupped his cheek and chin. "Not that I don't like it…."

"You're… alive!" Link said, huffing. "I… I saw you die! Stalfos blade, right through the sternum!"

One of the doors to another of the training rooms opened and a pair of people came out of it.

"That was a great workout, Lady Palutena! Thanks!"

"Oh, Pit, you really need to learn to be more ruthless! You aren't used to fighting with me. Remember what I said, I need us both to get strong. This tournament is training for us. Don't hold back!"

Link froze. After that, he tackled Pit, holding him by the shoulder with one hand, brushing his thumb over his forehead with the other. "You! You! You! Not a ghost! No wound! I didn't kill you!"

"Autoreticle!"

Link found himself thrown to the floor by a light-goddess' energy attack. "What are you doing, Link?" said goddess demanded.

A voice boomed over the room by loudspeaker. "NO WEAPONS-DISCHARGE OR USE OF SUPERNATURAL POWERS FOR FIGHTING OUTSIDE OF TRAINING OR BATTLE! RULES APPLY TO GODDESSES AS WELL AS TO MORTALS!"

Palutena curtsied to the ceiling-mounted surveillance camera. "I'm sorry, Master Hand," she apologized, "but he was hurting my guard captain."

"I'm okay, Lady Palutena," Pit assured her, straightening his feathers.

Link sat on the floor, trying to get his bearings. He put a hand to his forehead and looked around again. "I'm going mad!" he concluded.

"Easy, easy!" Zelda said, kneeling down beside him and rubbing his back. "You aren't mad. Tell us what you need to tell us."

"It was a dream, I think," Link began. "I had… a very vivid nightmare. It felt real… it felt so real…"

"Tell us about it," Doctor Mario said, patting Yoshi, who stood beside him. "It may make you feel better."

"Well… it began with an infection," Link said, trying to convey the story of the horrors he'd been experiencing over the past months – or perhaps just a bad night after too much spicy curry. "The tires on the beat-up old yellow bus with scuffed paint screamed as the rubber hit the road hard…"

The Smashers gathered and listened to the frazzled Hylian. Link pointed to Pac-Man and cited him as the first to fall of his group. He told Mario what Peach had done to him and spoke of how Pit had gotten hurt trying to save her. He talked of his sacrifice and of his dark twin's grief. He spoke of how Dark Pit and Samus went mad with rage, slaughtering zombies with brutal efficiency. Link told Red how Charizard became infected and killed him, and of how he'd seen a Pumpkaboo take his spirit away. The Hylian spoke of the hope that survivors had instilled, with W, Doctor Mario and Yoshi. Link spoke of the others whom he'd seen as zombies – Luigi, who was the doom of Peach, Kirby, who had doomed Toon Link – and of the great rush in Hyrule to the Temple of Time.

Ganondorf grunted. Captain Falcon laughed at him.

Zelda stood up and began clapping. Everyone else – well, save Ganondorf – clapped as well. All the Smashers formed a crowd around Link, standing, clapping, cheering and whistling.

Donkey Kong's claps were especially meaty and loud, given his large hands. Diddy was squeaking and doing flips.

"What's this about?" Link asked as he stood up.

"Poyo-poyo!" Kirby shouted.

"He means CONGRATULTAIONS!" Palutena laughed.

"Huh? What?" Link asked.

"Indeed, he does, Link!" Zelda said. "Thank you! You reached the Triforce and saved us all!"

"NOW JUST WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?" Link demanded. "I mean… just a few minutes ago, you were pushing me away and worried about my brain, and now… and now! I thought I was dreaming! I…I..!"

Pit walked up and clapped him on the shoulder. "Link, buddy… We were just messin' with ya!"

"Uh? Hiyaaa?"

Pit called to the other Smashers. "Everyone who was in the Fellowship, show him!"

Samus, Red, Toon Link, Ness, Lucas, Red, Lucario, Zelda, Dark Pit and W pulled white feathers out of their pockets. Duckie came trotting up, his little duck-friend resting on his back, and shook the collar he was wearing that he normally did not have on for battle around until the feather affixed to it was showing. Pit turned around and flexed his wings.

"So… the arrow on my desk… the pokeball with the Fletchling…"

Lady Palutena smiled at him. "Yes, all real."

"But… how?"

"You made your wishes known on the Triforce," Zelda said sweetly. "Our adventure happened, but everything was set right again."

"But, doesn't that mean..?" Link began.

"We all died horribly!" Pit chimed, jumping and flapping slightly into the air and letting himself drop.

"Piiiit!" Palutena scolded him.

"Yeah," Dark Pit said, crossing his arms. "It wasn't exactly a drive through the country, and we took all kinds of pain, but in the end, you came through. I guess."

"That is why Kirby made your favorite breakfast," Zelda said, taking Link by the hand. "You were sleeping so late, he was going to give you breakfast in bed. We all just kind of appeared back here last night, alive and whole, and we knew just what you did for us!" She walked along, rubbing her hero's back. "You were in bed when we all came-to, and you looked so exhausted, we decided not to wake you. I was staring to get a little worried, but you've always been a bit of a sleepyhead, in all your incarnations."

"We wanted to throw a party for you!" Pit explained, "But we didn't know how much rest you'd need."

"So you decided to mess with my mind, instead?"

"It was a' fun!" Mario chimed in.

"And we all need a little relaxation, any way we can get it," W said, striking a pose.

"We should prepare a feast to celebrate being alive!" Peach declared. "Kirby, come on in the kitchen with me, we know what to do!"

"Poyo! Poyo!"

"Yes! Cake! A big cake for Link!" Peach said, singing "La, la, la, la, la…" toward the Smash kitchen with Kirby inflating himself and floating in line behind her.

"Maybe I should get dressed then," Link said.

Before he could, Master Hand appeared and dipped down. He pointed an index finger straight at Link before very gently tapping him in the chest.

"M…Master Hand?"

"WELL DONE, HERO, WELL DONE."

Link would have called for a massive Smash, but somehow, after that long race for survival, he didn't feel like fighting. Instead, he was going to enjoy the company of his friends.

And a big cake.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Congratulations! You've got the Triforce trophy! Make your wishes wonderful! <strong>_

_**THE END. **_

_**ENDING THREE, FINAL, DEFINITIVE GOLDEN ENDING. **_

_**As for which ending you like best, pick your poison. **_

**HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY! **


End file.
